The Golem Formator of East City
by That-Hoopy-Frood
Summary: After the Ishvalan War, many state alchemists turned in their pocket watches, renouncing their commissions as dogs of the military. Including Grace Rosin, the aging Kaolin Alchemist, who traded her neural alchemy for caregiving duties in a respected Amestrian home. But, as Alphonse will discover, wartime promises are not as easily discarded as pocket watches. (lil bit o Royai)
1. One for Sorrow

"If you know the secret Name of God, you can build worlds and you can destroy them."

* * *

The desert was white before the war.

At least, that's what they told her. She had only ever seen its ruined afterimages, like photographs torn at the edges from the touch of too many fingertips. Something so corrupted it retained only a passing likeness to its former self.

Blood stained the sand crimson. Nitroamine and grain charges reduced the cities to rubble. Craters pockmarked the dunes, the rocks edging the peripheries fused lumps of charcoal from the heat. Everything smelled of sulfur and cordite and dying things. Flies orbited the distended bodies, drunk on the decay. The sun burned high and hot, searing sand and skin and souls. The sky was a clear, immodest blue. Suspended above the destruction, hanging over their heads like a reminder of how things ought to be. Detached from the carnage, and unreachable from the trenches.

She couldn't see the sky from her hiding place. But she could hear the coming dusk in the hum of the cicadas. It sounded strange in the adjacent moments between gunfire and explosions. A hymn, a canticle for things forgotten.

Perhaps the setting sun was a way of reminding humanity about the balance between good and evil, night and day. The sun sets. Light fades, dies, resurrects. Darkness falls. Nothing is eternal, and everything ends.

She pressed her back against a low wall and came to the abrupt realization that she was going to die.

It had been an ambush. Stupid, really. Careless. Her unit had been returning from a long firefight, trying to secure a few small blocks in the Gunja District, and when the gunfire erupted, they didn't have the arms or the manpower to hold the ground. Pinned down on the first floor of an abandoned flat, she wasn't able to get a clear shot at the enemy. Most of her comrades had panicked and tried to flee the building. They hadn't even reached the street.

The enemy occupied positions at her six and three. Most were civilians, armed with little more than farming implements. But there were two snipers on the roof opposite her hiding place, both of whom had been more solicitous of their ammo than she had, and she could hear reinforcements moving through the rubble in the adjoining street.

She pressed the trigger of her rifle. The empty click sounded obscenely loud. The floor was littered with bullet casings. She had propped the dead bodies of her comrades against the arched windows, hoping their silhouettes would fool the enemy soldiers into thinking Amestris still held the building. It hadn't worked. The lolling heads had been hole-punched by bullets. The fading sunlight streamed through the cracks, throwing spectral shadows across the far wall. Rearing and lurching like something out of a nightmare.

She tried to stand up and she felt something shift inside, and from what meager medical knowledge she had, she knew her innards shouldn't be moving around like they were. She didn't like to look at it, the tear in her stomach; it made her feel lightheaded, and she couldn't afford the luxury of going into shock. With one hand, black from the blood, she kept her wound closed. With the other, she held a double-edged hunting knife, the weapon that had injured her, taken from its owner. She waited.

War is a current, a push and a pull, surge and recession. The fighting usually ebbed during the nighttime, obeying some tacit lunar cycle like the tide. A lull in the battle would be an opportunity for her commanding officers to send an extraction. But she didn't think she warranted the effort, even if she _did_ survive long enough for the possibility to present itself.

Sometimes she was tempted to believe in heaven. It made her feel less lonely. Even if heaven wouldn't take her, and she was slated for the other place, at least she could delude herself with the false comfort of an existence beyond her short, sad life.

She had never thought of herself as being made for glory. Greatness awaited futures far grander than hers: it was the fate of Führers and war heroes and dark-eyed flame alchemists. No; she had never been one for a life of comfort and security. But… she believed she was owed better than Ishval, than hiding from the scrutiny of red eyes, waiting to die, fading with the daylight.

But was there any better way to fall in battle, she wondered. She didn't believe in honor. There was no gallantry in fighting for old men who sat at tables half a world away and squabbled over casualty reports. At least, hunkered down under the barrage of enemy fire, at the mercy of a people long bereft of magnanimity, she would die quietly, and no one else would lose their lives on the other end of her crosshair.

And if the Ishvalans didn't finish her, the blood loss would.

When she heard footfalls on the landing below her, she didn't try to run. She gripped her knife a little tighter, and sat up a little straighter. And hoped the sun wouldn't set quite yet; she wanted to be able to see the man who was going to kill her.

One of the grunts found her. An old man, his white hair cut short, his hoary beard gathered in a ribbon at his chest, a livid scar running from his right ear to the soft flesh under his neck. He wore the tunic and sash of the Ishvalan ecclesiastic gentry, but had outfitted himself in crude body armor; the animal hides were criss-crossed in knife slashes and bullet holes. Dark bags pulled at his eyes. His leathery skin hung from his bones, his cheekbones sharp enough to chip stone. When he spotted her, cowering behind the remnants of a countertop, he hefted his staff and crouched beside her in the dust.

He smelled of silica and sweat and hot sand.

"You're the last one," he said gruffly, the desert rubbing his throat raw. It was not a question.

She nodded.

"You killed most of our advance guard before you ran out of ammunition." He grunted. "Seems some lucky son of Ishvala landed a blow."

Something in her gut shifted. "Not so lucky, sir." She held the hunting knife for emphasis.

"You should know by now, Amestrian: you may have adopted a war of attrition, but attrition is all we Ishvalans have ever known. This is our world, a place you do not understand. You ought to have been more resourceful… with your bullets, and your life."

She didn't say anything, but her eyes flicked towards her rifle, resting against her knee. The Ishvalan caught the movement.

"You're the sniper, aren't you? The one who, they say, cannot miss her target."

" _They_ are wrong." The sun hadn't set yet, but the room was getting darker. Her extremities felt warm.

"Do you have a name? I trust "Hawk's Eye" isn't written on your induction orders."

"My name is Riza." The words were wet and sticky from the blood in her mouth.

"Riza." The Ishvalan sat in front of her, crossing his legs in the lotus position. "How many years have you seen, Riza?"

"Nineteen."

"Nineteen? Ishvala preserve us." His red eyes hardened. "Do you know how many of my countrymen you have killed, Riza?"

"Enough."

"Do you know their faces?"

"I was told… to never forget the people… you kill. Because they won't… forget you."

"An Amestrian told you this?"

"An alchemist."

"Ah. Then I pray I shall never cross his path. He understands the art of combat far better than you or I." The Ishvalan stood, his arthritic joints bending slowly and methodically. He removed a dagger from his belt. "Do you have anything you want to say, Riza?"

There were many things she wanted to say. But she didn't have the strength to form the words anymore… she was so tired.

"Can you forgive me?" she murmured.

"No." The man placed his dagger over her heart. "But I, Perim Cotte, can pray the next life treats you with more kindness than this one.

"Thank you, Perim Cotte." She closed her eyes. "That is far more than I deserve."

"I will give you a moment to pray."

"There is… no one listening for me… anymore."

"Then I shall pray for you."

Perim Cotte muttered something into the folds of his tunic. His prayer perhaps, or a blessing. Or a curse, thought Riza Hawkeye. Like so many things in her life, like her father's research, like the politics behind the damnable war, like the Flame Alchemist with the haunted look in his dark eyes, she didn't know the ingredients of the world's bastardized alchemy anymore. She spoke the words of sin, even if she didn't understand the language.

So she waited for the rending pain in her chest, and the drop into the long dark.

Sleep. Far more than she deserved.

But it never came.

She heard a gunshot instead, before tasting Perim Cotte's blood on her lips, and feeling the Ishvalan cleric slump across her lap, a hole in his skull opposite his right eye.

She looked up. A second Ishvalan stood in the stairway, the barrel of his pistol still smoking. His eyes were dull and unfocused, cracked like a broken mirror. Most of his teeth had fallen out; the few left were broken and rotting. His skin, once the color of caramel, was dangerously pale.

The left side of his head had been completely blown off, exposing necrotic brain tissue underneath. Flies picked through the suppuration. Maggots wriggled in the black flesh. He was very, very dead.

Very, very dead… and holding a pistol, standing upright, killing his countrymen.

Riza's attention was drawn to his face. His skin was adorned in intricate tattoos, snaking under his eyes and across his lips, latin runes edging the curve of his jawline and running under the ridges of sharp cheekbones.

Alchemy.

He looked at her, through her, staring somewhere she could not see.

"Cadet Hawkeye," he intoned, the words slurred and gluey through the rot in his gums, still tinted with the rich accent of the Ishvalan language, "Major Rosin's unit is on the way. Stay here. Stay alive."

Riza Hawkeye sighed. She nodded to the dead man, who shambled back down the steps, down into the city to kill more of his fellow Ishvalans. Eating their forces away from the inside.

Before she lost consciousness, she supposed she ought to count herself fortunate.

The Golem Formator was on the move.


	2. Two for Joy

East City

1913

* * *

Edward Elric gobbled down his lunch with relish, the food hardly touching the sides on its way down. His younger brother, Alphonse, sat across from him at the small wickerwood table, his hands folded neatly on his lap, making small talk whenever Brother deigned to stop for breath.

The waitress –– Al thought she looked a little like Winry, with cornflower blue eyes and blond hair tied in a ribbon –– had asked the younger Elric several times if he would be dining with his brother. The answer was always the same.

"I'll share," Al said. Ed just grunted through a mouthful of dumpling.

"Alright, but I'll have to add a gratuity to the meal."

"That's fine!" Al interjected, before Ed could protest.

But Al never picked at any of Ed's food. He simply watched, as though watching his older brother would somehow fill the hollowness in his stomach where pangs of hunger ought to be.

Alphonse Elric hadn't eaten a scrap of food in three years, five months, and sixteen days.

His last meal had been a thin, tepid soup, the color and consistency of used dishwater, hastily cobbled together by Edward before the brothers attempted to resurrect their mother using human transmutation, the ultimate interdiction amongst alchemists.

Al remembered Teacher telling them that cooking is just alchemy with a saucepan, a deconstruction and reconstruction of raw materials using heat and energy just like any other transmutational science. But the shared chemistries had never really crossed over for Edward. Brother was a terrible cook. Alphonse's last meal –– the gray broth with bits of what someone could only generously call vegetables floating around in it –– had tasted revolting.

And Alphonse missed it more than he had words for.

He missed the smell of manure in his hometown of Resembool just as much as he missed the sweet waft of hay baking in the afternoon sun. He missed the taste of stale milk and sweet cream alike. He wanted to burn his tongue drinking cocoa again. He wanted to stub his toes on table legs and get chills in the snow. Sometimes, when he wrapped his hands around tangles of barbed wire or stopped an enemy's knife from putting a hole in his brother, he wished his fingers would bleed.

When Ed came back from fights bruised and battered, Alphonse wished he could take some of Brother's pain.

So Al was pleased Ed tucked into his meals with such enthusiasm. It meant he still appreciated it.

"A penny for 'em, Al?"

Alphonse started, the folded sheets of his armor clanking together. Ed's mouth was so full of pork bun that Al almost didn't catch the words.

"Oh. It's nothing, Brother." Voicing his thoughts would make Ed feel guilty, and probably deprive him of his appetite, and Al didn't want that. The only thing worse than ruminating on the sensory deprivation of his armored body was knowing that Brother felt responsible for it.

Instead, Al deftly changed the subject: "I was just thinking how it's the third time this week you've avoided the Colonel's summons by going out to lunch."

Ed's expression curdled. He stabbed a pork bun with a chopstick. "I may be a dog of the military, but I don't heel at anyone's beck and call. Colonel Matchstick doesn't _summon_ me anywhere."

"You know what I mean. You're in the army now, Brother. You can't just keep ignoring him. You'll get in trouble."

"Like I care," Ed retorted spikily. "Besides, if I have to sit through him griping about everything besides the kitchen sink, then I'm gonna need the energy."

"You ate 20 minutes ago!"

"So?" Ed stuffed another pork bun into his mouth, until it bulged from his cheek like a hamster. "I'm a growing kid."

Al knew better than to dignify that with a response. Edward Elric was the youngest state alchemist in history, edging out his superior officer, Colonel Roy Mustang, by almost a decade. He had taken on rogue alchemists and power-hungry government officials. He had attempted human transmutation, survived the subsequent Rebound, and bonded a soul to a suit of armor. He was probably the bravest, most resilient person Al knew. And yet, despite all that, nothing could make Brother foam at the mouth quite like a pass about his height, or rather, his distinct lack of it.

And the last thing Al wanted to do on a peaceful afternoon was disturb the other patrons at the corner cafe with one of Edward's outbursts.

Save that for the Colonel's office, thought Al.

"What was the summons about?" he asked benignly, mindful of raising his brother's hackles too much, but curious despite himself. Though he wasn't in the military himself, and suspected Roy Mustang played his secrets a little too close to the chest, Alphonse was fond of the bombastic Flame Alchemist and his team, and found most of their dealings in East City intriguing.

When those dealings didn't involve near-death scrapes for Alphonse and his older brother, of course.

Ed shrugged noncommittally, wrenching Al back to the present. "Eh, just a phone call about some old caretaker lady or whatever having issues up at her employer's house. Needed an alchemist's help. Didn't think it was worth a run-in with the Colonel."

"I don't think that's for you to decide, Brother. She might be in trouble."

"And since when do state alchemists make house-calls? Don't worry about it, Al. It's probably just the Colonel trying to rope me into doing something that would take him five minutes if he bothered to do any work himself for once, instead of pawning it off on Hawkeye… or us."

"The Colonel does a lot of work!"

"Calculating the tip on his dinner dates doesn't count."

"That's a bit unfair."

"So is having to listen to him brag about it! He's worse than Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes."

Al sighed. Colonel Mustang had an ego at least as big as Brother's, and verbally spared with Ed so frequently it had almost become routine, but the Flame Alchemist had afforded the Elrics every kindness since their move from Resembool. Despite his reputation as a philanderer and a slacker, Al trusted the Colonel had the brothers' best interests at heart.

But it would take a constitution stronger than Alphonse's to convince Brother of that. So far as Ed was concerned, Colonel Roy Mustang was self-absorbed, arrogant, and the embodiment of every bureaucratic hindrance that came with being in the military.

Fullmetal and Flame, like oxygen and sulfur, mused Alphonse, almost fondly: so similar in their composition, but combined in the right quantities, they tended to make sulfuric acid.

As Ed ordered dessert, Al drank in the noise and color of East City. The cafe bookended a row of narrow rent houses and open-air storefronts, bright awnings fanning over the road. The street was a narrow, cobblestone affair, wide enough for pedestrian traffic but too small for anything larger than a horse-drawn cart. Even Alphonse had had difficult inserting himself into the throng without hitting someone with his pauldrons. Al never felt more hulking and unwieldy than when he was navigating the narrow, labyrinthine streets of East City, trying to keep pace with Edward as the tiny alchemist moved expertly through the crowds.

So, when a black sedan turned onto the street and began to inch through the crowd, parking parallel to the cafe and making everyone within a twelve foot radius grumble something uncomplimentary about the Amestrian government, Alphonse was just as surprised as the rest of the townspeople.

Ed's chopsticks froze midway to his mouth. He glared daggers with his butterscotch eyes.

"Fullmetal."

A man with black hair and even blacker eyes poked his head out of the passenger window. He glanced at the food on Ed's plate. "Oh good, you bought lunch. Get it packed up, I'll eat it on the way over."

Edward Elric snapped his chopstick in half.

Colonel Roy Mustang looked amused, smirking in that familiar way of his –– which often came at Brother's expense, realized Alphonse.

"Boys."

The driver's seat window rolled down to reveal a slim, severe woman with amber eyes and blond hair pulled into a tight knot: Lieutenant Hawkeye, the Colonel's right-hand man.

More like babysitter, Brother would argue.

Takes one to know one, Al wanted to say, but never did.

"Lieutenant. Colonel." Alphonse nodded to each of the officers in turn.

"Hey Lieutenant," muttered Ed. He didn't bother to acknowledge the Colonel before Al planted an elbow in his brother's ribs.

"Ow! What the hell, Al––"

"Brother." A quiet warning.

Ed's glare changed from indignant to loathsome as he turned from Al to Mustang, finally mustering a reluctant, "What do you want, Colonel?"

"Good afternoon to you too, Fullmetal." Mustang jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "Get in; we're late."

"To what?"

Mustang's face twitched. His genial expression looked suddenly very strained. "To the thing I specifically warned you _not to be late for_."

Ed blinked. "Huh?"

Al leaned in close before Colonel Mustang went apoplectic. "The old woman, Brother. She needed an alchemist's help, remember?"

"Oh. That." Edward crossed his arms. His garnish red cloak muffled the sound of his automail joints. He speared his last pork bun and swallowed it.

"Are you all finished here," asked the pretty waitress, appearing suddenly at Edward's shoulder, beaming.

Brother didn't break eye contact with his commanding officer when he said, "Yeah. And you can put it on the tab of Colonel Roy Mustang at Eastern Command."

"Sure thing… and can I see some form of identi––"

Edward flashed his pocket watch.

"Oh. Well, that's aright then!"

The waitress cleared the plates. Mustang's black eyes narrowed on Edward. Alphonse gave the Lieutenant a quick nod before the two state alchemists starting shouting at one another in the middle of the street.

Hawkeye jumped out of the driver's seat, opening the door for her commanding officer. Mustang switched to riding shotgun, leaving Ed to squeeze in beside Alphonse in the backseat. Once everyone was settled –– with Ed pressed against the window and Al's knees digging into Colonel Mustang's backrest, the chassis of the car groaning in protest under the armor's weight –– Hawkeye steered them expertly through the market crowd.

Edward drummed his fingers on his knee, his automail hand rattling like a chainlink fence. "So what's this all about, huh?"

It was Hawkeye who answered because, Al suspected, Mustang was dangerously close to losing his temper.

"What do you know of the name Osterhagen, Edward?" she asked.

Brother arched an eyebrow; the question had surprised him. "Just some basic stuff Teacher taught us when we were learning alchemy. It's the name of a chemical reaction. The Osterhagen method is a way of creating ballistic-like propellant using nitroglycerine, nitrocellulose, and acetone as a solvent." His face turned downcast and shadowed. "The chemical compounds produced by the Osterhagen method are used by the military in field guns."

Hawkeye nodded. It suddenly made sense to Alphonse why it was the Lieutenant giving the briefing and not the Colonel; no one knew guns quite like Hawkeye. She continued, "The Osterhagen method was developed by a man named Tyburn Osterhagen as a means of phasing out traditional gunpowder weapons at the advent of the Ishvalan Civil War. The Osterhagen propellant used in shrapnel rounds and cartridges made Amestrian weapons much less prone to explosions, safer for the soldiers shooting them. "

Mustang picked up: "Tyburn died before he saw the fruits of his labor. But Tyburn's son, Neumann, and his wife, Maria, became very wealthy once Führer Bradley officially bestowed the Osterhagens with a contract to supply the Amestrian military with weapons. The Osterhagens essentially monopolized the munitions trade during the Ishavalan War."

"They're war profiteers," said Ed darkly.

Alponse agreed. "They make money off the suffering of other people."

"So why should we care about this family, exactly?"

The two soldiers hesitated. Both Alphonse and Edward waited for an answer.

"The Osterhagens are dead," said Hawkeye bluntly, before Mustang had a chance to open his mouth, Al noted. The younger Elric figured the Lieutenant could handle the difficult details with a lot more grace than her commanding officer.

Brother looked less caustic all of a sudden. "What happened?"

"Isaac McDougal happened," said Mustang, his words biting like acid. Alphonse flinched, remembering the battle a few weeks earlier, during which both Elrics had felt more than a little surplus to requirement. "The Freezer took out several Central City blocks before the Führer subdued him. Maria and Neumann, along with their young son, William, were in a townhouse near Central Command when McDougal's ice walls reduced it to rubble."

"You said Maria and Neumann were killed," murmured Alphonse, "but what about the son? William?"

Mustang turned to look out the front windshield. Al thought he caught a glimpse of Hawkeye turning towards her commanding officer, their eyes meeting briefly in their reflections.

"You'll see," the Flame Alchemist finally said. Hawkeye's attention went back to her driving.

"So, is this what we're doing now, Colonel?" asked Ed quietly. "We're making house-calls?"

"Not at all," said Mustang as Hawkeye took a small road out of East City, "we're paying a visit to an old friend.

"And settling a debt while we're at it."


	3. Three for a Girl

"Pick your jaw off the ground, Fullmetal. You'll let the flies in."

Edward's mouth snapped shut. But both Elric brothers continued to stare.

Edward and Alphonse came from a modest home, a small farmhouse in the Resembool countryside. While their mother worked hard to ensure they were never left wanting, their way of life could hardly be called lavish. Both Ed and Al had chores to do, helping their single mother keep the house tidy –– weeding the garden, picking produce, sweeping the small cobblestone walkway leading to their front door. Dusting their father's study, even when the only inhabitants were shadows and echoes and snatches of memory too broken and brief to linger.

They had never known a great many material luxuries, thought Al; even Brother hadn't quite known what to do with his generous endowment after his state certification. The biggest house they had ever seen, aside from the military palaces of the government elite, was Major Armstrong's family mansion in Central City.

But the compound –– _house_ was too diminutive a word, Alphonse decided –– Colonel Mustang had brought them to made the Armstrong estate look like a glorified garden shed.

And it was a rare thing, thought Alphonse, to suddenly feel so small.

The sprawling estate looked as though it had once been a convent or a seminary, the sort of place to have great halls instead of corridors, conservatories instead of gardens. The buildings were long and low. Converted courtyards and commons areas and refectories blanketed the hillside. Turreted towers, like watchtowers, stood at four compass points on the edges of the property. Parapets bristled on the roof, giving the estate the appearance of an old fort.

Alphonse and Edward followed Mustang and Hawkeye up the footpath, leaving their car by the 20-foot high, wrought-iron perimeter fence. Al glanced down at his feet, where the weeds fought to reclaim the gravel. The lawn was overgrown, the grass yellowing and pockmarked with patches of granular dirt. Creepers snaked between the flagstones, and unkempt brambles tugged at Brother's long red cloak.

No lights flickered in the mullioned windows, even though afternoon was steadily waning into evening, the day dying fast in the autumn months. If it weren't for the guard at the front gate –– or the way Hawkeye had quietly unbuttoned her holster, Alphonse noted, resting her hand on the butt of her revolver –– the property could have been completely deserted.

It may have looked grand from the road, but the compound was an old, sad place. A shell.

They may not have been familiar with material luxury, but the Elrics were intimately acquainted with the solemn solitude of an empty house. The huge estate reminded Alphonse of their own home in Resembool… before Brother burnt it to the ground.

"This place looks abandoned," said Ed, thoughtfully rather than critically, his hands stuffed into his pockets, kicking a pebble across the gravel.

"The remaining Osterhagen keeps himself to himself," replied Mustang.

Alphonse knelt, plucking a dandelion that had grown between the flagstones. It had fought against the encroaching concrete and cement with the sort of blissful, ignorant optimism only weeds seemed to have. "It doesn't look as though he cares much for his home anymore."

And this place... it feels so incredibly sad, Alphonse wanted to say, but didn't.

"Sir." Hawkeye gestured to the front of the house. Mustang stepped up to a pair of double doors with handles the size of the Colonel's head. He knocked dutifully. A muffled voice sounded from inside, too distant to distinguish, but Mustang pushed regardless.

The door swung open; it had been unlocked. The three alchemists stepped inside, followed by the sharpshooter.

Ed's mouth almost dropped open again. Alphonse looked up in awe.

The foyer must have once been a chapel. Archways and columns rose high above their heads, twisting into complex geometric patterns Al didn't have names for, fluid in ways stone ought not to be fluid. It was like walking through something half organic. If Al concentrated, peering through the palls of dust hanging in the fading sunlight, he could almost imagine the walls breathing.

The surfaces were constantly changing. At the crux of the vaulted ceiling, helicoids and hyperboloids warped together like shards of glass in a kaleidoscope. Abstract shapes knitted together in smooth curves and jagged points. Even the railings of the balconies and stairways were braided together; it was difficult to tell where the stone ended and the iron began. It was, decided Al, a sort of alchemy in of itself, where the esoteric met the exoteric, where heaven met earth.

"Wow," breathed Ed. "This place is… this room… just, _wow_."

Alphonse didn't say anything. He just looked up, losing himself in the chapel's beauty, and for a moment, he felt close to something he couldn't quite describe.

Mustang smirked. "Your eloquence never ceases to amaze me, Fullmetal."

"Don't tease the boy, Major. Perhaps it's just you who's lost his sense of good taste."

Alphonse jerked his head from the ceiling, turning towards what had once been the nave.

The age of the woman approaching them was hard to place. Her face was deeply lined, her hair steely gray, cropped close to her head in a way that was almost militaristic. But she walked with proud, youthful energy, dressed in a bespoke suit that outclassed even the Colonel. She peered down at the dark-haired officer from behind a pair of pince-nez, studying him critically.

"Oh, it's _Colonel_ now. My apologies."

"Good afternoon, Major Rosin," Mustang replied formally. Alphonse thought his voice sounded a little breathy… not nervous, though. Like Brother, the Colonel was too proud to show fear. Unsettled, perhaps, as though something about the old woman made him feel ill at ease.

The woman pursed her mouth. The way she carried herself reminded Alphonse of a taller, lankier Pinako –– she had the same pragmatic air about her, a simplicity, as though she was accustomed to everyone overcomplicating things that ought not to be overcomplicated.

That would explain the Colonel's discomfort, thought Alphonse: it was a meeting of someone who was hard-nosed and straightforward... and someone so tangled in his own schemes he threatened to tie himself into knots.

"It's just Miss Rosin now, Colonel. I went the way of most of our kin subsequent to Ishval." She eyed the chain of his pocket watch. "But you retained your rank. I thought you might; you young ones always struck me as the ambitious sort."

"You were a state alchemist?" queried Ed, deftly inserting himself into the conversation. Brother didn't like to be ignored for very long.

Colonel Mustang glared at his prodigeé. But the old woman –– Miss Rosin, Al corrected himself –– smiled at Brother, the crow's feet in the corners of her eyes crinkling.

" _Was_ being the operative term, young man. But yes; I was one of the military's dogs at an earlier point in my life. I even had one of those silly titles Bradley seems so unerringly fond of inventing." Alphonse thought she straightened slightly when she said, "I am Grace Lambert Rosin, the former Kaolin Alchemist."

" _Gray Rosin_ … the Gray Lady, the Golem Formator, the Vilna Gaon," said Ed, his eyes widening in recognition, pulling the names from the indexes of his memory, "I've read about you."

"Indeed? How flattering."

"I didn't know you were in Ishval."

Alphonse winced. So did the Colonel. Brother was very tactless, sometimes.

"As you ought to know, young man, most state alchemists were in Ishval at some point or another." Miss Rosin turned to Hawkeye, who had kept dutifully quiet the entire time, two steps behind Colonel Mustang, guarding his back. "Yet, I'm surprised young Riza hasn't mentioned me."

Ed frowned. Alphonse glanced at the Colonel, who kept his expression schooled. The brothers weren't accustomed to hearing Hawkeye's first name. At Eastern Command, Alphonse had heard the Colonel refer to his subordinates by name many times, dropping the formalities and honorifics to give Havoc or Breda an elbow in the ribs, or pat Fuery on the shoulder, or clap Falman on the back for remembering something important about some case or other, some detail so minuscule even Brother would have forgotten it.

But the Colonel and his adjutant had always been very careful with their conventions, never referring to each other even by surname: just rank. Just their stations, the epitome of professionalism.

A professionalism that seemed far more comfortable and contented than the Colonel's informal relationship with the rest of his subordinates, thought Alphonse curiously.

But Miss Rosin addressed Hawkeye as though the Lieutenant was an old friend.

"I didn't…" Ed looked up at the Lieutenant awkwardly, not entirely sure how to treat the uncharacteristic familiarity, "didn't know you two knew each other."

"I imagine there's a great many things you don't know, young man," said Miss Rosin.

Ed's awkwardness vanished, his pride spurned. He crossed his arms and huffed indignantly. "Look, lady––"

"What concerns me more, however," she interrupted _him_ this time, folding her hands behind her back and bowing until she met Brother's eye; the small movement seemed to emphasize Edward's lack of any physical stature, "is what you _do_ know, Fullmetal Alchemist."

"You've heard of me, then," said Brother, his chest swelling, trying to scavenge his dignity.

"Of course. Although, I must confess I labored under the incorrect assumption that this fellow," Alphonse jumped when Miss Rosin gestured to him, "was the prodigious state alchemist I've heard so much about."

Ed's nostrils flared. "Yeah… _incorrect_ is right."

Miss Rosin adjusted her glasses. "You can hardly blame me for the mix-up, Mr. Elric. "Fullmetal" is a bit of a misnomer taken in its literal context. Only two of your limbs are automail, yes? Meanwhile, your younger brother here parades around in a full suit of armor like it's going out of style."

She turned towards Alphonse. The younger Elric squirmed under Miss Rosin's scrutiny. She had a discomforting tendency not to blink when she looked at someone. Her eyes were two different colors: one was green, even greener than Lieutenant Colonel Hughes's. The other was slate gray. Alphonse wondered if one of them was fake.

He didn't think about it for long. Instead, he tried to keep from shaking under her examination. Which was difficult, since Alphonse's shaking often sounded like a hailstorm on a corrugated roof.

When people looked at Alphonse, more often than not he was met with stares of confusion. Why was this person wearing a suit of armor in the middle of East City? In broad daylight? Wasn't he uncomfortable? And more often than not, Al could handle the confusion. His invented reasons weren't terrific, but he had learned that people tended to accept the ill-crafted excuses, simply because they didn't care enough to learn the truth.

But Grace Lambert Rosin was not confused. She looked into the slits in his helmet where eyes ought to be, looked _through_ the shadowy orifices, cutting through the armor like it was made of wet paper, staring past it.

Like there wasn't a person inside the suit at all.

If Alphonse had a body, he would've been sick. Like a phantom pain, he still imagined he felt the bile rising in his throat. He realized, then, that the Kaolin Alchemist knew there was no one inside the armor. That Alphonse's entire being amounted to a binding array inscribed in Brother's blood, staining the steel plating opposite his helm.

That his body was gone. Lost, perhaps forever.

And she _knew_.

"Elrics," said Miss Rosin gently, not looking away from Alphonse, "I appreciate your coming to call this evening, as irregular as it must seem."

"You got that right," grumbled Ed, oblivious to his brother's distress. "State alchemists aren't in the habit of making house-calls. And you still haven't told us what you want. I thought we were supposed to be helping these Osterhagen people…"

Colonel Mustang's black eyes flashed. He opened his mouth to say something, but Miss Rosin held up a placating hand. To Alphonse's surprise –– and Ed's –– the Colonel went quiet.

"Fair questions all, Mr. Elric," she said. "All of which I shall answer presently." She lowered her hand, and to Ed's visible annoyance, addressed his superior officer: "How much have you told them, Colonel?"

The Flame Alchemist crossed his arms, creasing his navy blue uniform. He took an interest in an invisible speck of dirt on his boots. "I told them of the recent trouble with the Osterhagens. I thought you had a better grasp of the details regarding this assignment, however."

"Assignment?!" Ed fumed. "Now wait a minute––"

"That's a very diplomatic way of saying you wanted to get off scot free, Mustang." Miss Rosin smiled wickedly. "You'll make a decent politician yet."

"Please," said Alphonse. His voice was small, but it had a way of reverberating inside his armor until it echoed. The sound carried well under the vaulted ceiling. Everyone went quiet. "Miss Rosin, can you tell us what it is you would like us to do? The Colonel said there was trouble here, but we can't fix anything if we don't know what it is we're supposed to fix."

"Of course, Alphonse." Miss Rosin gestured to the far end of the nave. "Follow me, please."

Alphonse obeyed. After a beat –– and some irritated grumbling –– Ed did as well. Hawkeye and Mustang brought up the rear.

They left the chapel, walking under an ornate archway, down a hall lined with sheeted furniture. Dust settled on every surface. Alphonse spotted spider webs and mouse droppings under the windowsills. The air smelled sour and stale.

"You asked about the time I served in Ishval," said Miss Rosin, "and I could sense your discomposure when I referred to the first lieutenant by name. Rather than bore you, or horrify you, with the details, let me abridge by saying I performed a service outside the purview of my required duties on the battlefield, and the Flame Alchemist," she cast a glance over her shoulder at Mustang, eyes narrowing slightly behind her pince-nez, "owes me a favor for the fact."

Something to do with Hawkeye, realized Alphonse. Judging by Brother's furrowed brow, he had reached the same conclusion.

But something neither the Lieutenant or her commanding officer –– or the Kaolin Alchemist, for that matter –– wanted to talk about.

Even so, Alphonse doubted Edward would drop the subject. He could be so indomitably stubborn...

"I serve the Osterhagen heir as his caretaker," continued Miss Rosin, appearing to change the subject. "I have been a friend of the family for some time, and after the Ishvalan War, they offered an old woman employment in a time when even fit, young veterans were struggling to find work. I am indebted to them for that, and far more grateful than words can say. But after the incident with the Freezer…" she looked pained. The lines of her face deepened, and grief seemed to age her. "Well, in their absence, I keep the estate, as well as someone my age can, and I perform… other duties, in the care of William Osterhagen."

"Let me guess," said Ed darkly, "those "other duties" are what we're here for. You need the help of an alchemist." The look Brother gave the Colonel could have set him on fire, thought Al, shuddering. "So why didn't you just ask Colonel Candyass here to help you, if he owes you a favor anyway."

"Your respect for your commanding officer is truly commendable, young man. But the Flame Alchemist's expertise does not, unfortunately, extend to the particular subject I have in mind. In light of his lack of knowledge, he referred me to you."

"Of course he did," Ed muttered through gritted teeth.

Alphonse placed a pacifying hand on his brother's shoulder. "What," he asked, "do you want us to do?"

Miss Rosin had reached the end of the great hall, the entrance to what had once been the refectory library. She pushed open the door, and beckoned them all inside.

A fire burned in the grate, throwing warm red light over an empty room, rows upon rows of empty bookshelves, empty tables covered in dust. And…

Alphonse stifled a gasp. He felt Brother stiffen next to him.

A boy.

A boy in a wheelchair. Completely quadriplegic, unable to so much as turn his head as Miss Rosin knelt beside him, adjusting his breathing tube, checking the equipment that was, Alphonse suspected, keeping him alive.

"I asked you here because, you see," said Gray Rosin; in the red light, a fire seemed to burn behind her glasses, "I have it on good authority you boys know a thing or two about human transmutation."


	4. Four for a Boy

**Earlier**

 _"NO! No no no no noooooooo."_

 _Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda took his time finishing his lunch before he deigned to ask the obvious question. "What's her name?"_

 _Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc, who sat adjacent to Breda at the officers' workstation and was currently in the process of twisting a handwritten letter like a used hankie, sniveled, "Lucille… I spent half my salary on those concert tickets…"_

 _"That's what your dumb ass gets for trying to date a rich girl," said Breda._

 _"I'm sure it wasn't your fault, Lieutenant. Maybe she's going through some things right now," said Kain Fuery, ever the optimist._

 _"What concert was it?" asked Vato Falman vacantly, gazing over a stack of books._

 _Havoc glared at the graying Warrant Officer, who took far too long to get the hint before returning to his paperwork._

 _"I really thought she was the one," said Havoc miserably._

 _Breda looked distinctly unsympathetic. "You think every grocer clerk and flower girl who so much as smiles at you is the one, Hav."_

 _"This one was different!" he insisted, his rejection letter crushed in his fist, "we had… a connection!"_

 _"Did you forget to tell her that?"_

 _"Shut up!" Havoc slumped in his chair. After a moment's consideration, he thumped his forehead against his desk, peering sideways into the middle distance as he murmured, "I'm going to die alone, aren't I?"_

 _"Nah, Hav," said Breda, working out a cramp in his writing hand. "You'll go out surrounded by pretty women, a blond on one arm and a brunette on the other, on some warm, exotic beach with the taste of your last rum punch still on your tongue."_

 _"R-really?"_

 _"No. You're dyin' alone."_

 _Havoc let out a sob, burying his head in his hands._

 _"Try not to smear those requisition orders with your tears, Lieutenant."_

 _"You're all heart, Hawkeye," said Havoc, his voice muffled. He realized he was still holding the crumpled letter and tried to toss it into the wastebasket; it bounced off the rim before rolling across the floor, just out of Havoc's reach._

 _"I hate my life," he muttered._

 _"We hate your life, too," said Breda, not looking up from his paperwork._

 _Havoc grumbled something unintelligible and reached for his only unopened pack of cigarettes –– for emergencies only, he had promised himself, and this definitely counted as an emergency. Hawkeye glared at him from under her fringe as he dug around for a lighter._

 _"LIEUTENANT."_

 _The doors burst open, a blur of dark hair and immaculate uniform blues thundering towards his inner office. Five heads snapped up, taut as piano wire, eyeing their superior warily. Havoc nearly dropped his flint, his unlit cigarette hanging forgotten from his mouth._

 _"Yes, sir?" asked Hawkeye calmly, Colonel Roy Mustang's outburst failing to make so much as a hairline crack in her composure._

 _"My office. Now."_

 _Havoc and Breda exchanged a glance, their earlier banter forgotten. Falman looked distinctly troubled, and Fuery pushed his glasses further up his nose - a nervous tick he'd never managed to shake. Hawkeye got up from her desk wordlessly and followed Mustang into his office. She was mindful to close and lock the door behind her._

 _Colonel Mustang didn't sit at his desk. He stood facing the window, looking out over East City, his hands clenched to fists at his side. His eyes were two black haloes reflected in the glass._

 _"The Elrics," he said, his voice dangerously soft._

 _Hawkeye's expression didn't betray her thoughts. "Sir?"_

 _"You told her about the Elric brothers."_

 _"Who exactly, Colonel?"_

 _"Don't play the fool with me, Hawkeye!" he roared, rounding on his subordinate, hitting a fist on the top of his desk. Anyone else would have jumped, but not the Lieutenant. "You ran into Gray… and now," he waved a notice in the air, a tiny piece of paper he'd procured from his pocket, "I've received a solicitation request from that damned woman. Explain yourself, Lieutenant."_

 _Hawkeye took a deep breath. "Perhaps it would be prudent, sir, to know exactly what she's asked of you."_

 _"Not me," he said bitterly, "Fullmetal. She just wants me to act as an intermediary, to set up a meeting with the Elrics. So, I'll ask again, Lieutenant," he composed himself with visible effort, "what are you playing at by telling someone like Grace Lambert Rosin about Edward Elric?"_

 _Hawkeye said nothing. She didn't meet the Colonel's eyes, focusing on the windowpane just over his left shoulder. Mustang slapped the piece of paper on his desk and stomped up to her, until he was only a foot away. Hawkeye still didn't meet his eye._

 _"You owe Gray nothing," he said, still angry, but quieter… so the others in the outer office didn't hear them. "Regardless of what she's done. Did she use her doings in Ishval to blackmail you?"_

 _"No, sir."_

 _"Then why––"_

 _"She blackmailed_ you _, sir."_

 _Mustang took a step back. One arched eyebrow was all the prompting the Lieutenant needed to continue:_

 _"I do not think it was a coincidental meeting, Colonel. I was walking Hayate. She was in the park with her charge, the Osterhagen heir. Our routes intersected. We talked."_

 _"What did you talk about, Lieutenant?"_

 _"Nothing of consequence, sir. She congratulated me on my recent promotion and my successful transfer to East City. She asked how you were handling office life." Hawkeye paused for a moment. Finally, she looked her commanding officer in the eye. Amber met black. "Conversation soon turned to the young state alchemist you had recently taken under your wing, sir. I noticed a disproportionate interest in the Elrics, and aware of the thin ice regarding their history, I tried to end the conversation and continue my walk."_

 _Mustang's frown deepened. "Knowing Gray, she didn't respond well to the change of subject."_

 _Hawkeye took a deep breath. "No, sir."_

 _"I take it she asked to meet with Fullmetal."_

 _"Yes, sir. However, I told her that responding to civilian solicitations of service do not fall within the responsibilities of military-affiliated state alchemists. They are answerable only to their superior officers."_

 _"That's when she pulled some dirt on us," said Mustang wryly._

 _"For lack of a better term, sir. She reminded me that her intervention during the Gunja crisis in Ishval was unsanctioned. So far as our superiors are aware, your team made the rendezvous as planned, whereupon you stumbled upon me, the only survivor of Colonel Gillespie's original scouting party. Pure luck, the report read."_

 _"They never found out that Gray sent one of her…_ things _," Mustang almost shuddered, "to keep you safe. The a_ _pplication of Gray's particular brand of alchemy fell under the purview of the warmongers in Central; she did not have the express authority to use it herself without first clearing it through Brigadier General Fessler. I trust_ _Gray said this all to you?"_

 _"Yes, sir. She made it evident that when she saved my life in Ishval, she was acting on your authority and yours alone."_

 _Mustang fought to keep his temper under control, no longer directing it towards Hawkeye, but towards the former alchemist. "So Gray intends to let slip to Grumman or, god forbid, Hakuro, that I set one of her monsters loose on Ishval without the express sanction of the Amestrian military… unless I arrange a meeting with the Elric brothers, correct?"_

 _"Yes, sir."_

 _"Damn her." Mustang ran a hand through his hair, mussing it even more than usual. "If this gets out, Lieutenant, it won't just be me taking the fall for it. Gray will be found just as, if not more, guilty. Why take that risk?"_

 _There was a long, pregnant silence. Lieutenant Hawkeye closed her eyes, collecting her thoughts. She didn't answer her superior for what seemed to Mustang like a small age. Agitation simmered in the pit of his stomach._

 _"Hawkeye?" he pressed, his voice rising in concern. He sighed. "This isn't about Ishval at all, is it?"_

 _"No, sir," said Hawkeye stiffly. "Colonel…"_

 _She had Mustang's full attention now; Hawkeye's voice had dropped to a near whisper. She didn't want the others in the outer office to hear what she had to say._

 _"What is it?"_

 _"Do you remember what you said to me three years ago, when we left Resembool?"_

 _Mustang's face darkened... remembering their first encounter with the Elric brothers. Remembering the house on the hill. The stench of burnt meat, blood splattered across the floor and the walls like some abstract expressionist nightmare, an archaic transmutation circle chalked into the floorboards._

 _Strands of lank black hair tangled in the dust._

 _"That was the day we found Fullmetal," said Mustang quietly. "Soon after he attempted to bring back his mother."_

 _"You made me promise to never speak of their indiscretion, sir," said Hawkeye. "Human transmutation is the ultimate taboo amongst alchemists."_

 _"You don't have to remind me. The military would court martial the lot of us if they ever learned the truth of Fullmetal's alchemy."_

 _"But… sir," Hawkeye hesitated; she rarely hesitated, "Gray knows."_

 _Mustang's eyes narrowed. "What?"_

 _"She knows the Elrics performed human transmutation. She is a keen alchemist, sir; she drew her own conclusions when she discovered Edward's automail limbs... and Alphonse's metal body. If she were to go public with the information, those boys could face prison… or worse." Her eyes turned downcast when she said, "And then they will never get the chance to restore their original bodies."_

 _The Colonel nodded to himself. Any anger at his subordinate evaporated. "Are you trying to imply that you did not break your promise, Lieutenant?"_

 _"Sir," Hawkeye straightened, "I never told Gray Rosin about the Elrics. I never told her about their attempt at human transmutation. But she knew anyway, and she used her knowledge to levy a meeting with them, for reasons I do not know."_

 _Mustang stood facing the window, watching the cars drive past the front gates of Eastern Command. Finally, he glanced over his shoulder, and asked, "Lieutenant?"_

 _Hawkeye took a step forward. "Yes, sir?"_

 _When the Colonel turned around, the lines of his hard, angry face had softened. "I know you would never betray those boys. Or me."_

 _Hawkeye inclined her head. "Thank you, sir."_

 _"I trust you, Lieutenant. You know that."_

 _"I like to think so, sir. I am only sorry my miscalculations in Ishval put you in this position."_

 _Roy Mustang quirked his eyebrows at her. "If I had to apologize every time_ you _had to save_ my _life, then I_ really _wouldn't have any time to finish that paperwork."_

 _She smiled very slightly. "I see your point, sir."_

 _The Colonel sighed again and shook his head. "Gray was always a wily one. I should have known she had her own agenda…"_

 _"I could not risk an official military inquiry into the Elric's affairs... or yours."_

 _"Afraid you'd lose your job, Lieutenant?" he asked, half in jest._

 _Hawkeye's expression didn't change. "No, sir, but you wouldn't be able to lead this country from a jail-cell, or in front of a firing squad."_

 _She's too good for me, thought Mustang, a little wistful. "You're always so practical, Lieutenant."_

 _"One of us has to be, sir."_

 _"Very well then." He sat behind his desk and began to dial a number, "I suppose I have a few phone calls to make, then…"_

* * *

Alphonse looked at his brother. After Miss Rosin mentioned human transmutation, Brother had rounded on Colonel Mustang, certain his superior officer had outed them to the old woman for the Colonel's own gain. The Colonel had explained, but Edward was still furious, his automail arm clenched so tightly it was starting to tremble. But, at the very least, the Fullmetal Alchemist no longer looked like he was going to go for the Colonel's throat.

Small victories, thought Alphonse.

"That's all there is to it," concluded the Colonel, glaring at the younger alchemist. "Satisfied, Fullmetal?"

"No," growled Ed. Alphonse winced. "You're a bastard, Mustang. We trusted you."

"If you must blame someone, Edward, then blame me," said Hawkeye firmly. "The Colonel acted on my intel."

Edward chuckled bitterly. "Yeah... I didn't know you were so easily manipulated, Lieutenant," he said, not meeting her eye.

"Brother––!"

"Enough, Elric!" snarled Mustang.

"I never had any intention of turning Colonel Mustang over to the authorities for his indiscretions, either in Ishval or for harboring two alchemists guilty of committing the taboo," interrupted Miss Rosin. Alphonse noted that she didn't quake in the slightest under Brother's furious golden eyes, or the Colonel's ire. "However, I knew Mr. Elric would never discuss human transmutation with me voluntarily, and so I knew I needed a way to facilitate the conversation. I also knew the Lieutenant, when faced with a threat against her commanding officer, would act swiftly and efficiently to protect him."

"You're playing a dangerous game, Gray," said the Colonel, his voice soft but menacing. It always frightened Alphonse when the inferno started to kindle in the Flame Alchemist

Miss Rosin steepled her fingers, peering at the officer critically. "Perhaps, Colonel. Or perhaps I merely good at reading the people I'm working with. I am old, Mustang. This isn't the first underhand deal I've orchestrated, you know."

"You clearly don't know _me_ very well!" said Edward, jabbing a finger at the Kaolin Alchemist. "I won't tell you anything about human transmutation. I'm not some dog to roll over on command!"

"Forgive me, Mr. Elric, but that's exactly what you are." She gestured to the silver chain dangling from his cloak. "That's what you've been from the moment you started carrying that pocket watch."

Brother froze. Alphonse put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from launching himself at Grace Rosin.

"My methods are not the cleanest, nor the kindest," said the old woman. "But you ought to know, Mr. Elric, that good people sometimes do terrible things. But that does not make them terrible people.

"I lost track of the number of innocents I killed during the Ishvalan Civil War. Enough for the totals to evolve into statistics, at any rate. We all have our crosses to bear, and our debts to shoulder. If there are circles of hell in this world, either self-made or part of the eternal kingdom of God, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than anyone else's."

"Is that why you came here?" asked Alphonse. He looked back towards the library; through the fracture under the door, the light in the fireplace flickered and shifted. He thought of the boy in the wheelchair. "You wanted to do something good."

"Yes, Alphonse. I wanted to pay down my account, to do right by other people using my alchemy. Understand: Colonel Mustang's modus operandi is fire. Colonel Grand's was iron-based composites. Major Kimblee's was combustable matter. Your brother's is... well, anything he can get his hands on, I suppose. My alchemic praxis is the mind. The accident that resulted in the death of Neumann and Maria left their 20-year old son, William, paralyzed. Doctors diagnosed him with cerebromedullospinal disconnection shortly after he was hospitalized."

Colonel Mustang blinked uncomprehendingly, but Brother's face suddenly fell. He grit his teeth and looked down at his shoes. There was pain in his eyes.

Despite her age, Miss Rosin didn't miss much. "You are familiar with the condition I take it, Mr. Elric?"

"Winry used to read medical textbooks," he said in a low voice, more to Alphonse than anyone else. "Her parents were doctors. It's complete quadriplegia, no motor control. That kid in the wheelchair can't speak. He can't communicate at all."

"And yet William retains all cognitive function," finished Miss Rosin. "He is still very much alive, and very aware of everything going on around him." She looked at Colonel Mustang, and behind him, Lieutenant Hawkeye. "I know I can never atone for the atrocities I have committed. I can never escape my personal purgatories. But, at least, I can keep someone else from falling into theirs. And so I try to make William as comfortable as possible. That is where my alchemy comes in."

"You used your alchemy to create monsters," said the Colonel darkly; Alphonse and Edward exchanged a look, not entirely sure what their superior meant. "You manipulated people's thoughts, made them into mindless, soulless killers."

Miss Rosin's mismatched eyes flashed. "And you once reduced entire swathes of Ishval to charcoal. You have no right to condemn me unless you fully intend to condemn yourself, Mustang. William is in constant agony; many of his nerves were irreparably damaged during the Freezer's rampage. I use my neural alchemy to alleviate the pain." She took her glasses off to wipe them on her sleeve, avoiding eye contact. "I just… I just I want him to be able to sleep again."

Alphonse stifled a gasp. The sound was too quiet for anyone to hear it.

"Neural alchemy," murmured Edward, his insatiable curiosity piqued. "What do you mean by that? I've never heard of alchemy that affects the brain."

"What is the body, Mr. Elric, but a complex interplay of chemistries? Neurotransmitters in the brain transmit signals across chemical synapses –– such as neuromuscular junctions, which have been almost completely destroyed in William. Calcium channels, acetylcholine, serotonin… even without any outside influence, the nervous system is alchemy at work."

"And in Ishval," continued Brother astutely, "you manipulated the brain chemistries to control people. The Colonel said you created monsters…"

Alphonse thought Miss Rosin suddenly looked very old, shadows pooling in the creases and crevices of her lined face. When the dim light from the fireplace caught her glasses, her eyes glinted red. Like her head was filled with fire and smoke.

This woman had been able to deduce Brother's attempt at human transmutation just from his automail. She had played to the Lieutenant and the Colonel's weaknesses, and had manipulated them all to secure a meeting. She was old and she was clever. Her history in wartime was littered with corpses. She had been a dog of the military, and had performed her role as human weapon to absolute perfection. Alphonse didn't want to trust her.

Then he remembered the boy in the wheelchair. Miss Rosin had put artificial tears in his eyes before stepping into the corridor; the boy hadn't even blinked.

Alphonse didn't want to trust Gray. But he had to. For the boy in the wheelchair. He _had_ to.

"I will tell you a story, Mr. Elric," said Miss Rosin, jarring Alphonse from his thoughts. "There is an old legend about an animated being created entirely from clay. In times of great peril, a holy man would sculpt this creature from the mud of the river bed. He would write one of the Names of God on a piece of paper and put it into the creature's mouth, whereupon the creature would come to life and do the holy man's bidding. The creature could then be deactivated by removing a single letter in the Name of God, thus changing the true meaning of its inscription from _truth_ to _death_."

"It's alchemy," murmured Brother. "But working in the opposite direction: reconstruction… and _then_ deconstruction."

Miss Rosin nodded in the affirmative. "In many ways, the legend of the Golem is a legend of alchemy. The law of destruction is the reversal of the law of creation."

Edward made a small noise to himself. "I think I understand. They used to call you the Golem Formator, after all."

"Among other things, Mr. Elric, not all of them complimentary. During my certification exam, I reanimated a corpse procured from Central General's morgue. The body's jaw mandible was missing, so I sculpted the missing pieces from kaolin, a soft white clay. I wrote the arrays on the cranium, and after I performed the transmutation… well," Miss Rosin shrugged, "the then-Colonel Fessler realized I could create the perfect kamikaze soldier: a golem, a creature without reason, or thought, completely enthralled to my will. I became the Kaolin Alchemist, and the dead began to walk again."

"We dreamed of bringing our mother back to life," said Alphonse, his voice small. "But the cost of failure was too high. Brother lost his arm and his leg. I lost my whole body."

"You can't bring the dead back to life," affirmed Ed.

"I never said my golems were alive, Mr. Elric. Strapping an improvised explosive device onto an Ishvalan corpse and sending it stumbling into an enemy encampment hardly qualifies as life, does it?"

Alphonse slumped. "No. It's horrible."

"That was war," said Miss Rosin simply. "But this is peace. I use my neural alchemy to deaden the synapses in William's brain, alleviating the pain of his quadriplegia. Still, he is trapped in that body. Quite the opposite of my golems, wouldn't you say, Mr. Elric? William was a brilliant student. He wanted to become a teacher one day, and even after the accident, he lost none of his metacognitive ability." She shook her head. "But unlike the horrors I created in Ishval, my dear Will can't even move his facial muscles to smile."

"I know what you want Brother to do!" exclaimed Alphonse suddenly, his armored body clanging as he sat up. Miss Rosin arched an eyebrow.

"What are you talking about, Al?" asked Ed urgently.

"When you said you wanted Will to sleep again…" Alphonse clenched his fists on his knees. "You don't just want to ease his pain. You're not interested in our attempt at human transmutation, are you? You're interested in _me_ , in how Brother brought my soul back after the Rebound.

"You want to bind William's soul to a suit of armor!"


	5. Five for Silver

"Brother…"

Edward faced away from Alphonse, shaking so violently his automail arm was rattling in its socket. He sat with his back bent and his head bowed, like he was trying to fold himself into a point and vanish. Brother had always been small, but he usually stood with his shoulders back and his chest puffed out, always trying to make himself appear bigger. Sometimes, it even worked.

When Alphonse looked down, he saw Edward gritting his teeth, trying to dam a tide of tears, or an eruption of rage, burning white-hot like magnesium.

He knew Brother wouldn't cry, as much as he might want to. Edward Elric hadn't cried since the Rebound. He had no more tears left to shed. His hard eyes were dry, leaving only anger and the bitter sting of remorse.

He hadn't said a word since Al's revelation, retreating to one of the Osterhagen estate's many courtyards to escape the prying, critical eyes of Miss Rosin, and the melancholy looks of the Colonel and Lieutenant Hawkeye. Brother had never had much time for the judgement of others, and even less time for their pity. Pity hadn't brought their estranged father back. Pity hadn't fed them after their Mom died, and pity wouldn't restore their original bodies.

The courtyard was dirty and dingy, bordered by romanesque colonnettes and a succession of arches that were beginning to crumble. Drooping olive trees hugged the columns. The flagstones were carpeted in dead leaves and squashed olives. Ivy curled up the benches and around the basin of an ornate fountain, which looked as though it hadn't held water in a very long time. Weeds had forced their way through the cracks in the stone. A pile of moldering firewood sat in one corner. The logs were riddled with termites, if the small holes and the smell of rot were any indication.

Brother sat on one of the benches at the edge of the courtyard, looking between a gap in the arcade. The estate sat on the summit of a large hill, one of several forming a natural bowl around East City. At the bottom of a gentle slope was the main road, little more than a dirt path, weaving through the countryside like a brown snake. Alphonse could see the city in the distance, the lights going on as the sun set somewhere behind the clouds. The sky was gunmetal gray, and the pleasant, warm air from the afternoon had turned cold. A biting north wind tussled Brother's hair, gold glinting a dull, feverfew yellow in the gloom. It was going to rain.

The first drops pinged off the plates of Alphonse's armor, echoing within the cavern of his chest. Splotches of rain were as conspicuous as bullet holes on Brother's red cloak. If Edward noticed the sudden rain and the damp chill of the air, he didn't show it.

"At least the Colonel won't follow us out here," said Alphonse. He didn't realize he had spoken aloud until Edward lifted his head.

"Yeah." Brother made a small noise. "He's useless in the rain."

Al stood beside Ed, who had crossed his legs underneath him to keep his feet out of the wet leaves. Alphonse wanted to smile at that; Ed's legs weren't long enough to reach the ground anyway.

In the distance, sheets of rain rippled in the air. East City was a deliquesced, watercolor blur behind the shimmering gray palls. Lightning cracked across the sky. Alphonse counted the seconds before he heard the thunder. The storm rumbled distantly, but it would reach the Osterhagen estate soon enough.

"The city looks weird from here, huh Al?"

"Brother?"

Edward chuckled. "All the colors obscured by the rain… it's like looking at the countryside through a pane of broken glass."

"The storm is getting worse. I can barely see the city now. I can't make out Eastern Headquarters from here."

"I can still see the red light of the tower at the radio station." Brother looked down at the sleeve of his cloak, speckled wet from the rain. "Red's a strange color, Al. Oxidized iron. Cinnabar. Vermillion. Mercuric sulfide. Some say it's even the color of the Philosopher's Stone." He shrugged. "After all, in some texts, the Stone is called _The Red Lion_ , or _Red Water_." Edward closed his eyes. "'Though Daphne fly from Phoebus bright / Yet shall they both be one / And if you understand this right / You have our hidden Stone / For Daphne she is faire and white / But Volatile is she / Phoebus a fixed God of might / And red as blood is he.'"

"I like it," said Alphonse.

"It's from _Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum_. I read it once. It wasn't very good." Ed sighed. "You know, I think the Stone is _that_ color red," he gestured to the distant antenna light, "like scarlet ink weeping in the rain. Pressed into the velum canvas of the world. A stain bleeding back through the pages."

"Like blood."

"Like your seal."

Alphonse felt a familiar phantom prickle crawl along the inside of his helm. "Brother… about William…"

"I won't do it, Al." His head drooped, rainwater dripping from his bangs, pattering on the stone. "I can't."

"Is it because of the Colonel and Lieutenant Hawkeye?"

Edward's eyes turned stony and resentful. He spat, "They're both bastards for dragging us into this, just to cover their own asses."

Alphonse winced. He was well-accustomed to Brother's stubborn dislike of his superior officer, but Edward had never uttered a word against Lieutenant Hawkeye before.

Ed looked about to say something more, but Al could tell his heart wasn't really into it. "Listen, Al: this has nothing to do with them anymore. That Rosin woman doesn't know what she's asking of us…"

"Brother," said Alphonse, looking down at his gauntleted hands, rain running in rivulets over the armored plates, "I think she does."

Edward turned sharply towards his younger brother, frowning. "You lost your entire physical being trying to bring Mom back, and now you're a soul alchemically bound to a suit of armor. She's asking us to do that to William. Tear his soul away from his body."

Brother didn't have to remind Al. He thought back to lunch at the cafe, which suddenly seemed like so long ago. Alphonse would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that he craved the human warmth of his former life –– the taste of good food, the closeness of physical companionship. He missed the years when he didn't have to endure the desperate, unending silence of a night spent alone, or the constant pain of blaming himself for the failure of Mom's resurrection and the loss of Brother's arm. While Edward may have complained about his diminutive height, Alphonse detested being so large. No one treated him like a little kid anymore, just some hulking brute keen to throw his weight around. When people met him for the first time, they were suspicious and afraid. Sometimes, he felt more like Edward's lumbering bodyguard than his little brother.

Ed had transmuted Al's soul out of desperation, trying to keep him anchored to the world. Alphonse hadn't had a lot of choice in the matter, and while the arrangement wasn't ideal, and while Edward had acted quickly and instinctually, the transmutation had ultimately saved his life.

But Miss Rosin was asking Brother to _willingly_ perform a soul binding, on someone whose body was still very much intact.

Except, it wasn't. Not really.

"Do you remember what Miss Rosin said, Brother?" asked Al, watching the rain fall in ash-colored sheets. "She said she uses her alchemy to deaden the nerve endings in Will's brain. His injuries keep him in a state of constant agony. But me…" Alphonse tapped his breastplate for emphasis; the sound echoed like a kettledrum. "I don't feel pain."

"Al, what are you saying…"

"Will can't move" continued Al urgently. "He can't eat or drink without help. He can't even speak. He's trapped in that body, just as I'm trapped in mine. The only difference is," Alphonse suddenly swung a fist towards one of the columns, dislodging several stones from the archway and making Edward jump; the blow would have broken a few knuckles on any other person, but not Alphonse, "I. Don't. Feel. Pain."

"You can't seriously be considering this!"

"I've already decided!"

"This is insane––"

"You tell me what's better, Brother!" cried Alphonse. "Feeling constant agony, or feeling nothing at all!"

"Al, even if I did agree to go along with this, I'm not even sure I _can_ do it! When I bound your soul to that armor, I sacrificed my arm to bring you _back_. We wouldn't be bringing Will back from anywhere. We'd just be sending his body somewhere else. It's not even the same process!"

"Then use Will's paralyzed body to pay the toll! Equivalent exchange. You can do it, Ed!"

"Al…"

"I would give _anything_ to have my original body back, Brother. Sometimes I miss sleep and food and the rain on my face so much I want to scream." Alphonse clenched his fists to keep his hands from shaking. "But if _that_ was my original body, that shell in the wheelchair, then I wouldn't want it back."

"That's not your decision to make, Al."

"After you stormed out, Miss Rosin said she communicated with William using her neural alchemy, and he had consented to the idea. Begged for it. Brother, he _wants_ this!"

"And does he know what _this_ entails?" asked Edward darkly, gesturing up and down to encompass Al's huge body. "Never being able to touch anyone? Going without food, or rest? Feeling _nothing_?"

Thunder rumbled distantly. Alphonse sensed the storm getting closer. "Brother," he said quietly, "if you were in constant pain, wouldn't feeling nothing be a relief?"

Edward buried his head in his hands. His cloak was soaked, and it hung like a weight on his shoulders. "Dammit," he murmured. He hit his automail hand against the bench and yelled into the oncoming storm. "DAMMIT!"

Thunder crashed. Lightning cut across the darkness. The world shivered.

Alphonse knew he had his answer.

* * *

Al didn't understand how Miss Rosin had known Brother would consent, but when they went back inside the house, she was waiting for them. She led them back to the foyer, the room of stained glass and twisting stone. At some point, she had assembled all the necessary ingredients: chalk, chalkstone, pens, paper, even a vial of red liquid that looked suspiciously to Alphonse like blood. He knew better than to ask where it had come from. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"In regards to drawing the array, I wasn't certain of your medium of choice," admitted Miss Rosin. "Although, as I understand it, since you committed the ultimate taboo, Mr. Elric, you don't even need a transmutation circle to perform alchemy?"

Ed wouldn't look Miss Rosin in her mismatched eyes. "This is different," he said quietly. "In order to keep Will's soul anchored to an inanimate object, I have to draw a blood seal."

Alphonse stood between William –– who had been wheeled from the library by Lieutenant Hawkeye –– and an ornate suit of Gothic plate armor, made from plain steel like Alphonse's body, but with elaborate silver decoration, with spiked armets and a grotesque helmet with a bellow visor, and intricate, fan-shaped fluting along the breastplate. It was at least a head taller than Alphonse, and looked as though it had once belonged to a decorative collection of suits. In the vast estate, which resembled a castle more than a house, Alphonse wasn't surprised Miss Rosin had suits of armor lying around.

"The iron in a blood rune will interact with the metal it's drawn on, causing the object and the blood to symbiotically bind to each other," explained Edward, picking through the assortment of materials before settling on the vial of red liquid. As Ed knelt on the stone floor, he drew symbols in the air with his automail hand: "The rune depicts a spark or flame hemmed in by a polygonal shape, usually five or eight multi-directional triangles which, when inscribed, represent all classical elements."

The mention of a flame sigil had drawn the attention of Colonel Mustang, who stood against one wall of the antechamber, his arms crossed, watching the process with his keen, analytical gaze. The shadows playing across his features made his black eyes look quite sinister, thought Alphonse. "The flame representing the soul and the hexagram representing its container, essentially binding the animus to this physical plane. Correct, Fullmetal?"

"Yeah." Edward stepped towards the suit of Gothic plate armor; Alphonse dutifully lifted the visor, and Brother uncorked the vial. "In essence, the soul exists in the mortal plane without its body, and is able to manipulate the object to which it's bound. The soul is able to move it, to control it, and to communicate verbally with the people around it."

"William was once an avid talker," said Miss Rosin distantly. She stood beside the sandy-haired boy, one hand on the back of his chair. "He always took an interest in his family's munitions industry, but he found the chemistry behind the Osterhagen propellant itself so much more fascinating than the financial or economic aspects of the business. He is Tyburn's grandson, through and through. As a boy, Will would talk endlessly about balancing equations and deriving chemical formulae. While other children played with toy soldiers and slingshots, Will would be growing Borax crystals using epsom salts. He framed his world in ratios, and took such profound joy in the exact precision of chemistry. He had the mind of an alchemist, and his grandfather's inventive spirit. He was slated to begin University in the spring, and then the accident happened…" She looked up at Alphonse, but addressed Edward: "Mr. Elric, this new body will give William his life back."

"There are caveats," warned Ed. "We'll have to pay a toll. I sacrificed my arm to bring Alphonse back, after all."

"Once William is in that suit of armor, he will no longer need his old body. We are not dealing in the realm of God and Truth, unlike your previous experience, Mr. Elric. No human transmutation has been performed, therefore a simple exchange should suffice."

"If you trade Will's body for the transmutation, there's no going back."

"Would there be any reason to want to go back?"

"Tell her, Al."

Alphonse nodded solemnly. "I won't lie, Miss Rosin, this form has come in handy. I feel no pain or hunger, no fatigue. Since I don't have a body, I can sustain more damage than normal humans. I'm pretty much invulnerable."

"William is no state alchemist, and he is not a fighter," said Miss Rosin, a little critically.

"But he won't be in pain anymore," Alphonse reminded her. After a moment, he added quietly. "However, he will always have a weak spot in the rune itself. If my blood seal is damaged in some way, my soul will start to fade from this body. I would be drawn back through the Gate to my own body, but William would just become a disembodied soul. He has to be very careful to protect his blood seal."

Miss Rosin nodded. "I understand."

"Do you?" Edward shot back, his eyes blazing in a sudden burst of anger. "Or are you just another dog of the military tampering with something you don't fully understand?"

"Do not presume to teach me my business, Fullmetal Alchemist." The Kaolin Alchemist adjusted her glasses. "Mr. Elric, when I was ordered to create one of my golems, I inscribed the necessary runes for kinetic motion in steganographic ink upon their faces, effectively binding them to my will. Every time I reanimated one of those monstrosities, every time I performed the transmutation, I imbued them with a part of my own soul."

Alphonse thought he felt the wind meander through the cracks in his armor plates. "Equivalent exchange…" he murmured.

"There are two corollaries in the law of equivalent exchange, Mr. Elric. Can you name them?"

"The Law of Conservation of Mass," said Ed grudgingly, "and the Law of Natural Providence."

"The latter stating that an object or material made of a particular substance can only be transmuted into another object with the same basic makeup and properties of that initial material. In other words, if I wanted to reanimate a corpse, what would be the transitive price I would have to pay?"

Alphonse thought he knew, but he was too horrified to voice his suspicions. It was obvious Colonel Mustang already knew; he had taken a sudden profound interest in the floor.

"How old do you think I am, Mr. Elric?"

Edward squirmed uncomfortably. "I dunno… late seventies, maybe? Eighty?"

Miss Rosin didn't betray a single thought with her expression. "I am forty five years old, Edward. I turn forty six in two weeks."

"What! That's impossible––"

"I paid the toll with my own life, Mr. Elric. Every time a golem stalked the streets of Ishval, several million of my cells ceased to produce the necessary energy to sustain themselves and subsequently committed apoptosis. Equivalent exchange. I wear the price of my sin like a second skin, just like you and your brother." The thunderstorm rattled the rafters of the room. Miss Rosin drew herself up to her considerable height. "So do not presume to lecture me on the nature of the soul, Mr. Elric, especially when so little of mine is left. This is not about you, or your brother. This is about William. Can you perform the transmutation, or can't you?"

Edward pursed his lips into a tight frown. But he gave a curt nod.

"Then we will not interfere." She looked around the room. "Colonel, Lieutenant, it would be best if you both waited outside."

"But––"

"This is not Eastern Command, Roy," said Miss Rosin, her words like acid; Al suspected her patience was wearing dangerously thin. "This is my house, and you will obey me. Outside, you and your adjutant. Now."

Mustang grumbled something under his breath. Alphonse was too far away to make it out, but judging by the Lieutenant's expression, it couldn't have been good.

Once the Colonel was gone, Edward dipped his finger in the vial. Judging by the viscosity, and the way Brother's lip curled at the smell, the red liquid was definitely blood. Alphonse watched as Brother inscribed the blood seal on the inside of the suit's helm: a pentacle, a five-point unicursal star constructed by stellating a pentagon, extending the edges until the lines intersected. In the center of the pentacle, Edward drew a small three-pronged fire, and the sigil of the Gemini constellation, the alchemic symbol for fixation.

"It's ready," said Brother softly. "Can you bring Will over here, Al?"

Miss Rosin relinquished the wheelchair to Alphonse. Al looked down at the bent, emaciated figure. His muscles had almost completely atrophied. His hair had once been dirty blond, but being trapped inside had turned it the color of pewter. His skin was pale and pasty. His cheekbones jutted from his sunken, hollow face. His eyes stared into the distance, somewhere Alphonse couldn't follow. A small pump wheezed on the back of the chair. Every time it deflated, William's chest rose and fell. His wrists were bound to the arms of the chair to keep his fingers from getting caught in the wheels.

Edward found himself looking _down_ at William. And for the first time in the Fullmetal Alchemist's life, he didn't celebrate being taller than someone. He knelt until he was at Will's eye level.

"Hey," he said gently; he grinned disarmingly, "we're gonna be putting you in there," he jabbed a thumb towards the Gothic plate armor. "Al and I are gonna fix you right up. You're gonna be able to walk and talk again, and it's not going to hurt anymore. But Al tells me it's a weird sensation, so it might be a little hairy at first. Grace is gonna be here for you though, don't you worry."

There was no indication William had heard or understood any of it. Alphonse felt something in his chest break.

"Okay." Edward's golden eyes flashed as the lightning arced across the sky. The house trembled under the concussive boom of thunder. "Stand back, Al. Don't want you getting caught up in it."

"Yeah. Sure."

Alphonse went to stand beside Grace Lambert Rosin, who had begun fiddling with the hem of her jacket for something to do. Her mismatched eyes looked misty.

Edward Elric took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, his brow furrowed as he worked out the complex alchemical formulae in his head.

Then he brought his hands together.


	6. Six for Gold

**Later**

The rain had stopped.

The wind blew cold, and mist rose from the street in wisps of vapor, curling like the thread of a corkscrew. Most of the lights were off in Eastern Command. The columned building stood silhouetted against the bruised purple of the sky, looming over the city with all the dark foreboding of a hurricane. If Alphonse had his body, he imagined his hair would have stood on end. It was well after midnight, yet the air felt charged –– like the hush before a lightning strike. The clouds were thick, and most of the gaslamps had been extinguished for the night. The street was stained in shadow. Everything had been reduced to cold contrasts of gray, like there was a hole in the sky, and all the color in the world had leaked out. The straight lines and sloped rooftops of the narrow rent houses clashed together at oblique angles. The geometry of the night felt wrong, somehow, in a way that was almost alchemical. Obeying a science both archaic and corrupt… the tacit laws that explain why all rational creatures are afraid of the dark.

Alphonse shivered.

He had wanted to stay at the Osterhagen estate. It had taken him one hour, twenty three minutes, and fifteen seconds to regain consciousness after Brother had transmuted his soul, and Alphonse wanted to be there for William when woke up… if he woke up at all.

Then Edward had collapsed, exhausted from the transmutation. Alphonse caught him before he hit the ground, and Lieutenant Hawkeye had wheeled him out to the car in what had once been William's wheelchair, now empty. The last Alphonse had seen of Miss Rosin, she was urging them not to go to a hospital –– too many questions, the Colonel had agreed –– and corralling the hulking suit of armor further into the estate, well away from the public eye.

That had been seven hours ago.

Unlike Brother, Alphonse was a patient person. But he didn't know how long it would take Edward to fully recover, and Al wasn't sure he was prepared to wait that long.

The walk to Eastern Command from their hotel in the wharf district had been quiet. Like the rain had washed the world clean. The few MPs who passed him recognized him immediately, and let Alphonse loiter outside the command center without disturbing him.

He was glad when he spotted her leaving through the main gate, reams of paperwork clutched to her chest.

"Lieutenant!"

Lieutenant Hawkeye turned quickly, her gold blond hair rippling under the streetlight. Her hand went immediately to her holster, but as she distinguished the outline of Alphonse's armor in the fog, she relaxed.

"Alphonse," she said, releasing a breath, "I wasn't expecting you."

"I'm sorry I startled you."

"There's no need to apologize. I ought to have been more attentive of my surroundings."

The younger Elric looked up at Eastern Command. "You're here late."

"The same could be said for you. Shouldn't you be with your brother?"

"He's resting, ma'am. He'll be alright in the morning."

"I see." She eyed him keenly. Her undivided attention made him squirm. "So he doesn't know you're here, does he?"

Alphonse touched his fingers together and didn't meet the Lieutenant's eyes. He trusted she understood his point well enough.

"You just missed the Colonel," she said quietly, filling in the adjacent silence, nodding towards a third story corner office, one in a row of black windows. Alphonse looked up, letting out a little noise of surprise. Hawkeye smiled. "He usually leaves with Lieutenants Havoc and Breda in the evening, but what many people don't know is that he returns after sundown. He went home shortly before me."

"Brother is always bemoaning the Colonel for being lazy," said Alphonse. He felt ashamed admitting it, but Hawkeye's slight smile didn't waver; it was not the first time her superior officer had been called indolent, and Alphonse doubted it would be the last.

"Impressions matter a great deal to him," she said, "even if the impression is largely incorrect. His fronts afford him some small degree of protection in this line of work."

"For himself… and for others, too. The people close to him."

"In many ways."

Alphonse thought of Brother, then. After a long battle, after the high-fives and the boasting, the way Edward's butterscotch eyes would turn downcast and his whole body would crumple, his automail and his alchemy and the weight of the world hanging like a noose around his neck. Like he was so tired that it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other. The way he bickered with Winry over his repairs, how he pouted when she scolded him… and the way he would blush crimson when he thought she wasn't looking. The way Brother clapped Alphonse on the shoulder after a hard-fought victory, grinning like an idiot, when Al could hear the iron rattle of armor on automail because Brother's hand was shaking so violently.

Brother wore his fronts like the carapace of a beetle. And while Edward so often complained about the Colonel's lackadaisical attitude towards his duties, Alphonse wondered if perhaps Brother was making the same mistake so many made about him. If both Brother and the Colonel had each become incapable of distinguishing the other's performance from their person. Masks, after a time, become difficult to remove –– like lifting a visor to find nothing underneath. Alphonse understood that feeling better than most.

There existed between them a sort of amicable friction, a push and pull like some perpetual motion machine. It was evident in the Colonel's sly, smug grins that he enjoyed baiting Brother, watching him twitch under the responsibilities his state certification inevitably demanded. But, in response, Edward took a great deal of satisfaction in circumventing the Colonel's orders. Though Al had grown to dread the conferences in Eastern Command –– Brother and the Colonel's meetings being so fraught with squabbling and shouting and an apparent mutual dislike –– he knew that the two alchemists held a great deal of respect for each other… though Edward would rather chug a gallon of milk and the Colonel would rather sit outside during a thundershower than admit it.

After all, thought Alphonse, almost fondly, their personalities were so similar. They were proud, arrogant creatures, as alchemists so often are, but there was no doubting the fact that they were willing to do anything to protect the ones they love.

Alphonse himself was proof enough of that. As, he suspected, was Riza Hawkeye.

"He works better at night," the Lieutenant continued absently; Alphonse realized that she had been watching him intensely, and was struck with the irrational suspicion that she knew exactly what he was thinking. "When it's quiet. When the world is still," she inclined her head, "when young state alchemists with hair trigger tempers are too busy sleeping to cause trouble."

Before Alphonse had a chance to stutter an apology, Hawkeye held up a hand. She laughed lightly. "I wasn't being serious, Alphonse."

"I…"

"If nothing else, your brother keeps us busy. Without you Elrics, I imagine our lives would be littered with sharp absences."

Alphonse had never before seen the light-hearted side of the Lieutenant. She always seemed so strict, full of steel and straight edges, just like her guns. Alphonse would be lying to himself if he didn't admit he was a little frightened of her.

"I… uh…"

But when Hawkeye smiled at him, her eyes were smiling, too. There was only warmth in her expression. A genuine tenderness, the sort Alphonse imagined she didn't show very often, if at all.

And Alphonse understood, then, that Brother and the Colonel weren't the only ones predisposed to wearing masks, to hiding their true selves.

Suddenly, her smile wavered. "Alphonse," she said softly, "I feel I must apologize for this afternoon. I had no right to involve you or your brother. I was there in the aftermath three years ago, and I know the pain both you and Edward have endured as a result of human transmutation."

"Lieutenant… it's not your fault. Miss Rosin forced you and the Colonel into agreeing to a meeting."

"But I cannot deny that there was a part of me, albeit a small part," the crinkle of paper was the only indication of her clutching the forms closer to her chest, "who believed you could help that poor boy, the consequences be damned. I wanted you both to succeed, and it blinded me to my better judgement. For that, I am truly sorry."

Alphonse didn't know what to say. The Lieutenant had always been so kind to him, to Brother, to Winry… it hadn't even crossed Alphonse's mind to blame her for their encounter with Miss Rosin. Despite the terrible things he'd heard about her in Ishval, despite the fact that Hawkeye scared him a little bit, he believed she was a good person.

"Is there something you wanted, Alphonse?" asked the Lieutenant, more for his sake than for hers, "beyond the pleasure of your company, of course."

It took Alphonse a moment to recall what he'd come for. When he remembered, he stopped walking, forcing Hawkeye to stop as well. Al looked down at the pavement, as though he could find the words imbrued into the pavement. He had rehearsed what he was going to say on the walk from Brother's hotel to Eastern Headquarters. But faced with Hawkeye's kind, open face and questioning eyes, Al suddenly had difficulty forming complete sentences.

"Alphonse?" Concern colored her words.

"Lieutenant," said Al quietly, "may I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Do you still have your car?"

"Yes. I dropped the Colonel off before returning to headquarters for some documents I left behind. Why?"

He was glad he was so much taller than Hawkeye, so he couldn't see her face when he said, "I need to see Will."

He felt her stiffen beside him. Alphonse knew it was no small request; the Osterhagen estate was several miles outside of East City, and it was very late. The Colonel wouldn't be very happy if his assistant showed up to work the next morning –– rather, later that same morning, Alphonse corrected himself –– looking drawn and tired.

But Alphonse _had_ to know. Ever since Brother performed the transmutation, and Miss Rosin carted the suit of armor away, the urge had been a persistent itch in the limbs he no longer had. Alphonse had never met another like him, and it was doubtful he ever would again.

He remembered how scared he had been on that dreadful night long ago, opening his eyes… and then realizing he didn't have any eyes. That he couldn't blink. He couldn't cry. He couldn't look away when he found Brother unconscious and bleeding on the floor of their father's study. And when he stood up, he nearly fell over because his new limbs were so bulky. He had picked up Edward's body like it weighed nothing at all. And when he stumbled onto Pinako's front porch, it was Winry who answered the door in the middle of the night. Who looked at Brother's stumps, and the hulking suit of armor covered in blood, and screamed.

Alphonse never forgot the sound of Winry's screaming. And he learned quickly that it's possible to forgo sleep and still have nightmares.

He knew William was just as, if not more, frightened. At least Al had had Brother's predicament to distract him from the confusion and sheer horror of having his soul shoved into a new body. William was probably all alone, trying to sleep… trying to cry… alone in that big house with only Gray Rosin for company, who was a brilliant alchemist, but was about as warm and comforting as Fort Briggs.

Furthermore, Miss Rosin didn't understand. Alphonse did.

"You want to talk to him," said Riza. It was not a question.

"I have to."

"I'm sure Major Rosin is taking good care of him, Alphonse. She's a very capable alchemist, and I believe her heart is in the right place."

"I trust your judgement, Lieutenant," affirmed Alphonse, "but after Brother bound my soul, I would have given anything for someone to hold my hand and tell me everything was going to be all right. I can help him. I _have_ to help him. He doesn't have to be alone."

Hawkeye stopped beside a black government car. Alphonse stood behind her.

He couldn't feel her hand when she rested it on his arm.

"I am continually astounded by your compassion, Alphonse." She sighed. Her winged bangs dipped over her eyes. "This world can be a cold, cruel place. You have suffered so much, you and your brother. But you have never stopped being kind."

Alphonse bowed his head. "The world isn't all bad, Lieutenant. Not while we still have people who care about us. Like Brother, and Teacher, and Granny…" he hesitated before adding, "and the Colonel."

Alphonse thought he heard her breath hitch, but it was so subtle and so quiet, and Hawkeye moved to unlocking the car so quickly, he must have been mistaken.

She opened the backseat for him. "I'm sure Major Rosin will understand if we show up unannounced."

"We won't disturb her?"

"We veterans of Ishval don't sleep much, Alphonse."

"Oh."

The drive through the silent city dissolved into scintillations of wet cement and dark windows. The occasional gaslamp remained lit, especially in the wealthier neighborhoods, and the streets flashed by in reels of black and white, like film in a kinetoscope. Motion blurred the lines, and as Alphonse watched, the patterns became fuzzy and indistinct, pulsing against the not-eyes of his not-body like the dull thrum of the thunder from that afternoon. A lull amidst the storm.

Alphonse suddenly remembered what it was like to be rocked to sleep.

"Lieutenant?"

She stopped at a corner, looked both ways, and continued driving. "Yes?"

"This afternoon, before Brother transmuted Will, when the Colonel was telling his story, he said 'you owe Gray nothing'. What did he mean?"

They passed the slums at the edge of East City. As the final flats and tenements faded away, the road grew uneven and narrow, and the darkness of the countryside enveloped the car. The headlights were two parallel beams moving into infinity, disappearing at some indiscernible point in the distance. Alphonse thought Hawkeye was never going to answer. He resigned himself to her silence. Perhaps he had taken a step too far––

"During the annexation of the Gunja District in Ishval," said Hawkeye tonelessly, "Brigadier General Fessler ordered advance scouts to secure strategic positions in the city, in order to minimize casualties once the larger invasion force made their move. We were the canaries in the proverbial coal mine. I served in a small scouting company lead by a man named Colonel Alexander Gillespie."

Alphonse wracked his memory. Sometimes he envied Brother's mind; Edward would have given Warrant Officer Falman a run for his money. "I haven't heard of him."

"You wouldn't have. He died a very ordinary death, shot in the back of the head by an Ishvalan infantryman."

"Oh," Al said again.

"Along with the rest of his company." The younger Elric could see the Lieutenant's eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. They seemed flat. Guarded. Her thoughts were somewhere Alphonse wasn't welcome. Her eyes were the color of cinnabar; in alchemy, a substance that represented the sun, fire, royalty and energy, which could be roasted to produce liquid mercury. Quicksilver, as fast and deadly as one of Hawkeye's bullets.

"The Ishvalan insurgents knew the land far better than their enemies," she continued. "Using the desert to their advantage to catch an Amestrian patrol unaware was all too common. And the Ishvalans were resourceful, too, and tenacious, like wolves with the scent of blood.

"There was a standoff. A warrior monk stabbed me in the kidneys before I managed to kill him. A long firefight finished my comrades and depleted my ammo. I holed myself up in an abandoned building. There, I waited to die."

Understanding dawned on Alphonse. "But you didn't. Miss Rosin…"

"Not Kaolin herself. One of her golems: what was once an Ishvalan civilian, long dead, reanimated using Major Rosin's alchemy. The golem guarded me until another company rendezvoused at my location."

"She saved your life."

"Yes." Riza took a turn down a dirt road, little more than a cattle track. "Major Rosin's alchemy was quiet, controlled. Unlike other state alchemists, who favored wholesale slaughter over pinpoint targeting, Gray's golems could not fade away into the chaos of raging fires or crimson explosions. Though she drew her transmutation circles in invisible ink, and used corpses with most of their bodies intact, at close range, it is not difficult to distinguish the living from the dead."

"I get it. There was a risk of the Ishvalans learning her trick," finished Alphonse, "learning to pick out her golems amongst a crowd. Learning, and adapting."

Hawkeye gave a quick nod. "The focus of Gray's alchemy was infiltration, sabotage, and covert destruction of enemy instillations using the golems as Trojan horses. As such, she was ordered to use her alchemy sparingly, and only with the express written consent of Brigadier General Fessler."

"But Miss Rosin sent one after you."

"Yes, she did."

"It wasn't authorized, was it?"

"No. She acted on the insistence of a single junior officer."

Alphonse saw the lights of the Osterhagen estate on the top of the hill, like the eyes of a sea monster lurching out of the nightmare depths of the ocean. "The Colonel."

Her silence was all the confirmation Al needed.

The car rolled to a stop on the gravel drive. Hawkeye put the car into park.

"So, in a way, you are absolutely correct, Alphonse Elric."

He started. "About what?"

She twisted in the driver's seat to face him. "Your brother and the Colonel are far more alike than they realize. They protect the people they care about."

Alphonse realized what the Lieutenant was implying. "You mean… you knew the Colonel, before Ishval."

Edward had always noted how Hawkeye followed the Colonel around like a second shadow –– Better her than me, Brother would say –– but Alphonse wondered if there was perhaps more to their history than first impressions would seem to indicate…

 _Impressions matter a great deal to him, even if the impression is largely incorrect. His fronts afford him some small degree of protection in this line of work._

"It doesn't matter," said Lieutenant Hawkeye, smiling sadly. "What's done is done. We still have work to do.

"Let's go see William."


	7. Seven for a Secret

Alphonse hammered on the door. "Miss Rosin? Mr. Osterhagen? It's Alphonse Elric."

"I don't hear anyone," said the Lieutenant. Somehow, Al could sense her trepidation, the tension in her shoulders like a compressed spring.

"But the lights are on…" Alphonse rested a hand on the handle. The massive door budged slightly, dusty, stale air diffusing into the night. "It's not locked."

"It's possible she didn't hear us. It's a massive house, and Major Rosin dismissed all the staff subsequent to William's accident."

"What about the guard by the gate this afternoon?"

Hawkeye frowned. "There was no one there when I drove past. He must have gone home for the night."

Alphonse took a deep breath, making a decision. He pushed the door open. Without the afternoon light filtering through the stained glass windows, and with most of the ornate sculptures obscured by shadow, the chapel looked empty and cold. "Miss Rosin?" he ventured, his words bouncing around the rafters. The metallic ringing of his armor coupled with the reverberation in the stone chamber made his voice sound heavy, like a leaden pipe.

Hawkeye followed after him, her head moving in every direction, calculating lines of sight and attack angles. Just watching her made Alphonse nervous. After a moment, she gestured to the end of the nave. "The light is coming from the refectory library."

Al nodded. "Miss Rosin said Will's really smart; maybe he spent a lot of time in the library, back when he had his original body. Maybe he wanted to be somewhere familiar. "

"Would it help?"

"I don't know," said Al quietly. "When I woke up in this body, I wanted to get as far away from _my_ house as possible."

"I see."

"But Brother was in trouble, then. I had to help him. I didn't have time to worry about myself."

Alphonse lead the way down the corridor, the Lieutenant keeping a carefully calculated two steps behind him. He realized after a moment that she was guarding his back, just like she guarded the Colonel's back. Al found the parallel a little funny, especially considering that, unlike Colonel Mustang, he was practically invulnerable. But old habits died hard, he supposed.

"How did the Rockbells respond to your transformation, Alphonse?" asked Hawkeye suddenly. At Alphonse's surprised rattle, she explained, "I want to be able to anticipate Major Rosin's reaction to her charge's new body."

"Oh, I see." It must have been a soldier thing. "Well, Winry was scared at first." He remembered the screams and shuddered. "But my voice still sounded the same, and there was Brother to see to, so she fetched Granny. Granny didn't even wait for an explanation. She just thanked me for bringing Brother to her and then started fixing him up, no questions asked." Alphonse bowed his head a little. "I think... I think she knew Dad, and he was an alchemist, too. I don't think there's a whole lot about alchemy that can surprise her anymore."

"From what little I know of her, Pinako Rockbell sounds indomitable."

"When we first met her, Grace Rosin reminded me a little bit of Granny. They both seem so _sensible_." Alphonse thought back to that afternoon; Miss Rosin hadn't revered or condemned Brother for his dabbling in soul binding and human transmutation. She had simply wanted to know whether or not Edward could save young Will Osterhagen. Practical concern had trumped any philosophical or moral reservations she may have had.

The Lieutenant made a small noise of acknowledgement. "It's strange you should say that… Major Rosin reminds me of someone from my life, too. Another alchemist I served with in Ishval. I suppose it's to be expected: alchemists are so often kindred spirits."

"Who?" Alphonse hurriedly corrected himself, "if you don't mind my asking."

"The man's name was Kimblee."

"Kimblee." If Alphonse had a flesh and blood body, he imagined his mouth would have felt dry. "Brother mentioned him once... isn't he the man in prison?"

"Yes. Serving a life sentence for murder, unless I'm mistaken."

"But you said… Miss Rosin's heart was in the right place…"

"The right place at this point in time. To a woman like Grace Rosin, that could change. The axis of morality could shift."

"I don't understand."

"Both Major Rosin and Major Kimblee are calculating, fastidious creatures," said Hawkeye firmly. "Subject only to their own perceptions of what is right, and what is necessary. They are dangerous not because of their alchemy, Alphonse, but because of how they determine who will suffer because of it. Like Major Kimblee, Major Rosin held no ill will towards the people she slaughtered in Ishval. There was only her duty, her service to Amestris, and the belief that adding the rogue variable of compassion would complicate an otherwise uncomplicated narrative. Kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest." Hawkeye sighed. "Major Rosin is a very simple person in that respect."

"So when she tried to help Will," Alphonse said softly, "she wasn't doing it out of charity…"

"She was hired as the Osterhagen caretaker. It is her job, and she will do her job to the best of her ability. Including going to any length, however immoral, to keep her charge safe and happy."

Alphonse remembered how uncomfortable Colonel Mustang had seemed in Miss Rosin's presence. The coldness between the two of them made more sense now. Colonel Mustang refused to speak of his service in Ishval, but Ed had weaseled enough information out of him to know that the Colonel regretted his actions with every fiber of his being. Someone as duty-driven as Miss Rosin wouldn't just be inscrutable to the Colonel, but abhorrent. Alphonse could understand why the Colonel wouldn't want to remain indebted to someone he saw as a monster.

Well, a different species of monster, at any rate.

They reached the library. The door had been left slightly ajar; the fire burning in the grate threw spectral shadows across the wall, dancing in the darkness, dipping in and out of the peripheries of the corridor like they were trying to hide from Alphonse's gaze.

They didn't hear anything coming from inside except the slight rustle of embers smoldering in the fireplace. Outside, a gusty wind had been left in the wake of the thunderstorm. Alphonse heard the windows creak and hoped the olive trees surrounding the property weren't in any danger of falling over.

He thought of dead leaves dancing in helical pirouettes, the breeze tussling the gold cornsilk of Brother's braid...

"Mr. Osterhagen?" Al asked tentatively, rapping his knuckles on the door. "It's Alphonse, the Fullmetal Alchemist's younger brother. May I come in?"

Hawkeye had stood on the other side of the door, peering through the crack and into the room. She harrumphed. "He's in there," she affirmed quietly.

"How do you know?"

"I can't see him clearly, but the room is far brighter than it ought to be. The dying light from the fireplace is reflecting off a smooth, shiny surface."

"A suit of armor!"

"Perhaps. Alphonse," Lieutenant Hawkeye stopped him with a hand on his arm before he went barging into the room, "have you considered the possibility that William doesn't want to see us?"

Alphonse paused. No. It hadn't even crossed his mind.

All Al had wanted after his own soul binding was an empathetic friend, someone like him with whom to affirm his humanity. He had assumed Will would want the same. But now that Hawkeye mentioned it, the doubt lingered. Maybe Will didn't want others to see him in his new body… see him as a freak, a lumbering giant, more of a monster than any of Miss Rosin's golems, thought Alphonse miserably.

"I've already dragged you up here, Lieutenant," he said instead, steeling his resolve, "it would be wasteful to leave now."

Hawkeye just nodded. She hadn't really been trying to dissuade him, Alphonse realized. She just didn't want him to be disappointed.

She was preparing him for the worst.

Alphonse summoned up his courage. He pushed the door open.

A suit of Gothic plate armor, well over seven feet tall, stood near the fireplace. Its head was bowed, until the helmet brushed against the breastplate. Two massive hands hung limply by its side. It stared into the embers, watching the ash spill from the grate and onto the stone floor. It didn't look up when Alphonse entered the room.

"Mr. Osterhagen?" ventured Al. "William?"

There was no response, but Al thought he saw the suit of armor shudder. It may have been a trick of the fireplace, or the night wind seeping between the cracks in the walls, making everything sway.

Hawkeye remained by the door, allowing the younger Elric his space. Alphonse was grateful.

"Hi Will," he said gently. "It's Alphonse. We met this afternoon."

Miss Rosin had said victims of cerebromedullospinal disconnection still retained full cognitive function, but Alphonse wasn't sure how many of Will's memories –– if any –– had survived the crossing over from his old body to the suit of armor.

The soul was a tricky thing. Even Brother didn't completely understand it yet.

"Will?"

The suit of armor stayed quiet, lost in thoughts of fire and ash. Outside, a branch snapped in the wind. The sound made Alphonse jump.

Suddenly, Al felt a presence at his back. While there was no way for him to sense any physical proximity, his instincts were still sharp. He whirled around, only to find Hawkeye at his shoulder. He was surprised to see that she had drawn her handgun.

"Something isn't right."

Alphonse didn't question it. If Lieutenant Hawkeye sensed something was wrong, he trusted her implicitly.

Then, the suit of armor _did_ stir. It raised its head, cocking it slightly to the side, like an inquisitive child, or someone listening to a faint voice through a wall. Alphonse almost imagined he felt his stomach roll… with relief, with excitement, with fear. He wasn't sure. The suit was moving. Will was in there somewhere!

The helmet turned towards them. The visor was sparrow-beaked, curving along the line of the jaw. To Alphonse, it looked like Will was smiling.

Abruptly, Lieutenant Hawkeye grabbed his arm. With her free hand, she leveled her handgun at the suit of armor.

"Alphonse, run."

"Lieutenant-!"

" _GO!_ "

The armor took a lurching step forward, stepping out from the silhouettes cast by the fireplace and into the light. Then Alphonse saw it.

Intricate hexagrams tattooed across the helm, curling under two narrow eye slits, running along the contours of the metallic fluting. Latin runes Al almost recognized. Complex geometric shapes scrawled across every inch of the steel, until the original design of the helmet was lost under the arcana.

Then the suit of armor lunged.

Hawkeye immediately fired several shots, one concussive _pop_ after another, denting the steel plating of Will's body but not slowing him down. Will crashed into Alphonse, the larger suit of armor sending the younger Elric stumbling towards the fireplace. Alphonse's horsehair plume crackled in the embers. Will moved expertly despite his size, sweeping Alphonse's legs out from under him as Al struggled to regain his balance. Al crashed onto the ground, the chalk he'd procured from his waistcloth rolling across the stone floor. Will crushed it into dust under one enormous foot.

"Alphonse, duck!"

With his alchemy chalk gone, Al did as he was told. He pressed his helm into the floor as Hawkeye fired both of her guns, having drawn a smaller pistol from the holster at her back. The shots were deafening. Alphonse saw two bullets lodge themselves in Will's eyes. Several pinged off his kneecaps. Hawkeye aimed for the minute chinks in his armor. And she didn't miss a single shot. If there had been an actual person in the suit, he would have been writhing on the floor in agony.

Will seemed surprised at first, taking a few steps back under the barrage of bullets, giving Alphonse time to clamber to his feet. Then Al heard the damning _click click click_ of the Lieutenant's handgun.

Hawkeye threw the weapon aside and continued to fire her smaller pistol. Will charged her, bullets bouncing harmlessly off the steel armor.

"Lieutenant, watch out!"

Alphonse barreled into Will, knocking him off course. But the weight differential was significant, and Al felt himself overbalancing while Will merely teetered. Alphonse wasn't accustomed to fighting enemies so much bigger than him, and never without his alchemy…

Will recovered quickly, and another chorus of empty clicks indicated Hawkeye had run out of bullets again. She unsheathed two hunting knives from underneath her uniform jacket. An offhand part of Alphonse's brain –– one not immediately concerned with the likelihood of surviving the night –– wondered just how many weapons the first lieutenant had on her…

"We need to get out of here, Alphonse," she said, her voice terrifyingly calm. "Can you make it to the door-"

Will bounded across the room in two huge strides, blocking the arc of Hawkeye's knives with two crossed arms. The Lieutenant leapt back, trying to gap the distance between her body and the massive suit of armor… only to find herself trapped against the far wall.

It happened with frightening speed. Will grabbed Hawkeye's wrists; Alphonse could hear the bones grinding together from across the library. The Lieutenant hissed in pain, the knives forced from her hands. Will drove her to her knees.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye!" Alphonse sprinted towards her…

"What in God's name is going on… _Will?!_ "

Alphonse's head snapped up. Miss Rosin crashed through the open door, still in her bathrobe, looking as though she'd just sprinted across the entire estate, which she very well may have done. She had a small ladyfinger gun in one hand and a stick of charcoal in the other.

For alchemy, Alphonse realized, relief flooding through him.

Will wrangled with Hawkeye until she was pinned against his chestplate. She continued to struggle fruitlessly, hammering his arms with her fists; the armored boy didn't seem to notice. He stared at his caretaker with two dull, dark ovals where his eyes ought to be.

Gray Rosin fumbled with her pince-nez. Squinting through her glasses, she recognized the other two figures in her library and her mouth parted in horror. "Alphonse! Riza… oh no…"

"You have to help her," said Alphonse breathlessly, already scrambling in his waistcloth for a spare bit of chalk, a pencil, _anything_ with which to draw a transmutation circle. "Something went wrong with the soul binding… Will's going to hurt her!"

"Will…" Miss Rosin's face fell, her eyes darting around the room. For a moment, she didn't look like an imposing state alchemist. She looked like a frightened old woman, wrenched from her sleep in the middle of the night by intruders in her home. "William… what's going on."

"He can't answer," said Al. "Brother warned me it could happen… that a receptacle can reject a soul. It must have driven him insane!"

Will held one arm across the Lieutenant's windpipe. She opened and closed her mouth, but no sound came out except strangled gurgles.

"Please!" begged Alphonse, trying to spur the stunned Miss Rosin into action.

"Al… al…" croaked Hawkeye.

"Don't worry, Lieutenant, we're going to get you out—"

"Al… al... alch… emy."

"What…"

 _Alchemy_.

Alphonse's body went numb.

Though he couldn't feel anything, he could have sworn the temperature in the room plummeted. He suddenly felt very cold, like florets of ice were smarting against his armor. He looked at Will's helmet. He looked at Miss Rosin, the charcoal in her hand.

Not a fresh piece of charcoal. The end had been worn down ever so slightly.

"Miss Rosin…" Alphonse hated how small his voice sounded.

"This was not ideal," murmured Grace, composing herself with some effort. She sat her pince-nez neatly on her nose. "But it's my mistake, I suppose. I should have anticipated your wanting to help Will in his transition." She sighed, rubbing a temple. "Ten years ago, my commanding officer would have had my commission for an oversite like this. I really must be getting old."

"I don't understand…"

"You're a bright boy, Alphonse. I think you do."

A million thoughts crashed against the inside of Al's helmet but he couldn't seem to transmute any of them into words. But she was right; he understood perfectly.

 _There is an old legend about an animated being created entirely from clay. In times of great peril, a holy man would sculpt this creature from the mud of the river bed. He would write one of the Names of God on a piece of paper and put it into the creature's mouth, whereupon the creature would come to life and do the holy man's bidding._

The Gray Lady had created another golem.

There were a lot of things Alphonse wanted to say. He wanted to rage at the Kaolin Alchemist for betraying Brother's trust. He wanted to beg for the Lieutenant's life. He wanted to ask _why_.

But all Alphonse managed to whisper was, "I thought you wanted to help him… I thought you wanted to take away his pain..."

Gray smiled sadly. Alphonse could have sworn her eyes were welling with tears; he knew Brother would have lost his temper right about then.

"Oh, Alphonse," she said, her voice shaking with barely-suppressed emotion, "Will has been dead since the accident."

The memory of an acidic burn in his stomach, the churning nausea of horror, was so fresh in his mind that Alphonse thought he was going to start heaving. He remembered the sandy-haired boy in the wheelchair. How listless his eyes had seemed, how dull the colors. The line between the whites and the iris blurred. Staring at everything and seeing nothing.

"When they dug him out of the wreckage," said Gray softly, "he was completely brain dead. His body was ruined, and his mind was gone. Do not mistake me: that _is_ William's soul in that suit of armor. But it is a soul fractured… broken beyond even an alchemist's ability to stitch back together."

"So you turned him into a monster!" cried Alphonse, his voice breaking, his fists clenching. He choked out a sob. "You… desecrated him!"

"Don't you dare, Mr. Elric," Gray's grief-stricken words cut like razorblades. "If you feel a need to revile my sin, then revile your brother's, as well. You are both products of an alchemist interfering in the realm of law and God. William Osterhagen is no more a monster than you… a half-creature, a man of clay, a golem, with one foot already through the Gate, deconstructed to the barest ingredients. Just an empty suit of armor and a blood seal.

"The blood seal…" Alphonse whirled around to face Will, the younger Elric's hands raised into a fighting stance. If he could reach Will's blood seal, he might be able to save the Lieutenant...

Hawkeye's face had gone alarmingly pale, but she began to shake her head as much as she could manage.

"If you value her life, and yours, Alphonse, then please refrain from approaching Will," ordered Gray smoothly, her earlier pain well suppressed. "If you force me to kill the lieutenant, then I'll likely bring the wrath of the Flame Alchemist down upon our heads, and I think that should best be avoided."

"The Colonel will stop you! _Brother_ will stop you!"

"You don't even know what it is I intend to do, Alphonse. Who knows: they might even be amenable to the idea." She shook her head. "In any case, I would rather you not leave. I could do without further interference."

"You haven't drawn any transmutation circles," Alphonse pointed out, "and I could easily get past you to reach the door."

"Very true. Reanimating Will took its toll on me, and you are much bigger and stronger than I am. However," Gray's mismatched eyes, one the color of slate and one the color of poison, narrowed dangerously, "you don't seem the type to leave the indefatigably loyal Lieutenant Hawkeye behind."

Alphonse turned back towards Hawkeye helplessly. She was still shaking her head, even though the movement was making her neck bruise. Her amber eyes were wide and pleading.

The metallic sigil on the Lieutenant's uniform collar, the dragon of Amestris, clinked against Will's armor.

In the silence that followed, the sound seemed as loud as one of Hawkeye's gunshots.

The dragon emblem. A symbol of the military. The same symbol on the back of Brother's pocket watch, on the Colonel's own collar. Embellishing every flag on every government building from South City to the Northern Wall of Briggs. It was as prevailing a symbol as any in the entire country.

Alphonse knew the Lieutenant's meaning well enough. And it broke his heart.

I'm sorry, he wanted to say, but didn't.

The younger Elric didn't give Gray a chance to use her charcoal, or the small gun she clearly didn't favor –– she would have fired a warning shot earlier if she did. He leapt for the door, checking the old woman with his shoulder, hoping the blow would wind her enough to keep her from alchemizing anything to impede his escape. He didn't look back as he sprinted through the long, gray corridors and into the night.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…" he repeated the words like mantra, forcing himself to run faster down the hill towards the outskirts of East City.

Towards Edward.

"I'm sorry."


	8. Never to be Told

_Author Note:_ _Hey FMA-ers, just as a head's up, I'm going to be updating a lot less frequently in the next few weeks. Uni has started up again, where I'm a full time student as well as a teaching assistant, so I have quite a lot of work to do and papers to grade. Thanks for understanding! *hugs*_

 _However, we are almost finished the story! So hopefully you won't have to wait too long!_

* * *

"How rude…"

Gray Rosin took her time getting back on her feet, her movements agonizingly slow. Riza's vision began to blur, black and red spots speckling the peripheries of her sight, but she could see Gray tenderly nursing one of her shoulders. Alphonse was a large person, and the doorframe had been the only thing to keep Gray from being knocked across the room. Riza suspected the alchemist's collarbone may have been broken, or the trapezius muscle torn. Even if it was, the Lieutenant couldn't muster an iota of sympathy.

Not least of which because it was getting increasingly difficult to breath. Alphonse may have been big and strong, but William was preternaturally huge, and was significantly taller and broader than the younger Elric. And he was being controlled by Gray, enthralled to her neural alchemy. Riza felt a pressure building behind her eyeballs; the skin of her neck had been rubbed so red and raw against Will's armor that it was beginning to bleed.

Suddenly, a tiny muscle in Gray's face twitched, and Will's arm lowered from Riza's throat, until he was hugging her, keeping her pressed tightly against his breastplate until the steel pipping dug into her back. At least, Riza thought grudgingly, she could breath again, even if she felt as though her bones were being crushed by Major Armstrong.

She could concentrate again. She didn't dignify her chances of escape with any due consideration, but she _could_ formulate a plan to slow Gray down until Alphonse reached Roy.

"You're scheming, Lieutenant."

Riza's chest hurt, and she had a difficult time drawing breath, but each word dripped with malice. "Yes, sir. I have every intention of giving Alphonse ample time to alert the Colonel to your doings."

"Loyal to the last, hmm?"

"The same cannot be said for you, Major."

"Loyalty? Riza, I haven't been loyal to anyone in a great long while." Gray knelt on the carpet beside her captive. Riza noted the minute grimace of pain flash across the alchemist's gnarled face. A broken collarbone was no small injury, and Gray Rosin wasn't as young as she used to be. If Riza could keep Kaolin confined to the house, the Colonel would stand a chance…

"My loyalty has always ever been to myself and to my ideals," continued Gray. "Dispensing one's loyalty to all and sundry stretches one in too many different directions, until one is liable to start tearing at the seams." She sighed, and asked, almost gently, "After all, what has loyalty ever done for you?"

Riza stayed quiet, her eyes hard. She began to count her heartbeats, trying to standardize the passage of time. The Osterhagen estate was twelve miles outside of East City. A long way for any man to run, but Alphonse was no ordinary man. He didn't tire, and his gait was much larger than a normal person's… and once Alphonse reached Eastern Command, it wouldn't take Roy long to muster a fighting force. Riza reasoned she had to keep Gray occupied for a little over an hour…

"Your indomitable loyalty has left you burned and broken, girl."

The words elicited a tiny prickle in the space adjacent to the Lieutenant's shoulder blade, where, under the thick blue wool of her uniform, the smoothness of her skin was pebbled with burn scars.

Still, the Lieutenant said nothing. She didn't dare.

"You no longer remember what it's like to live for yourself." Gray persevered in her examination, every part the alchemist; the pity in the older woman's voice made Riza's blood boil. "You measure your worth by quantifying your usefulness in the eyes of other people. It's such a sad, empty way to live, Riza. I would hesitate to call it a life at all. You serve no greater function than a common lapdog!"

Riza let the words roll off her skin like water. She counted her heartbeats, relaxed her muscles, concentrated on the wind winding through the cracks in the walls and the drip-drip of mildew in the corners of the room, and thought not of Gray's assertions. The more time the alchemist wasted talking to her, the closer Alphonse drew to East City.

Gray didn't seem to notice Riza's attempts at distraction. Or more likely, thought the Lieutenant, Gray simply didn't care.

Was the Kaolin Alchemist so certain of success?

"Tell me, girl, because I am legitimately curious: do you imagine you have something to atone for? Do you cower in Flame's shadow because of _your_ guilt, _your_ shame… or because of his? Yes, Roy Mustang is a prodigious alchemist, and one of the finest soldiers I've ever met, but he is also young, and too ambitious by half. And I served as a dog of the military long enough to know that young pups with eyes bigger than their stomachs tend to spell trouble. He asked me to save you that day in Ishval, and I wondered then, just as I wonder now, what sort of interest the Flame Alchemist, the Hero of Ishval, had in one scrawny sniper.

"The little idiot pleaded with me, you know, begged me!" Gray's mouth twitched in what was almost an amused smile. "I was worried he was going to get down on his knees and start groveling. I would have been embarrassed for him if I wasn't so surprised."

She was trying to make Riza angry. Or perhaps Gray was simply stating the truth, and it was only Hawkeye who found the details so incredibly painful.

But Riza's self-control didn't waver.

Gray glanced towards the fireplace, where the embers smoldered. "But I acquiesced, because I knew Mustang would owe me a favor for the deed, and favors are one of those commodities with exceedingly high rates of interest. I did as I was asked. I brought you home. And for five long years, I swallowed my questions."

Riza's face was a mask, impenetrable, unyielding. Like the kaolin clay that had given Gray her name. Stay focused, Riza intoned to herself. Say nothing. Reveal nothing. Protect the Colonel… protect the Colonel… protect the Colonel…

"But I think I have my answer, Lieutenant."

Protect the Colonel protect the Colonel protect the Colonel say nothing reveal nothing protect the Colonel…

"I think he was in love with you. I think he still is."

Riza took a tiny amount of satisfaction in maintaining her silence. It would be well worth it once the Colonel and Edward arrived, and razed the house to the ground.

"I suppose it's a moot point now," Gray rose unsteadily to her feet; she looked dangerously thin under her robe, something bleached and skeletal, like bones in the desert, "fraternization policies being what they are. I wouldn't put it past that scoundrel to try, but I imagine you take great pains in abiding by the book, Lieutenant. I don't value Mustang's promise of good behavior to any great extent, but you, Riza, are a model soldier. Blind, unthinking loyalty becomes you, girl.

"Although," Gray held her charcoal in her hand; the stick had left dusty streaks on her palm, like black ash, "I _do_ wish Mr. Elric hadn't run off. I could have set you both up in the refectory with a few books and a pot of tea and had you wait for me to finish my job. I never had any intention of hurting you or your commanding officer, nor the estimable Elric brothers."

"And that job would be, Major…?"

She shook her head, her tight cap of silver-white hair hardly moving. "You soldiers… you're like splinters, always so tenacious." Gray adjusted her glasses. "But you just endured my rather unkind deconstruction of your character, so I suppose you deserve a little information in return. Equivalent exchange and all that. But first…" Gray's mismatched eyes, one livid green and one storm gray, took on the broken, disjointed look of someone not in complete possessions of her wits.

Riza was reminded of two bright, lupine eyes leering at her, shining in the dark of a desert ruin, and a tiny crack appeared in her composure. She shuddered.

"But first," Gray said again, "I need you to hold very still for me…"

* * *

"What?!"

Mustang could almost see Falman shrinking back from the phone, as though Roy could perform transmutations over great distances and the receiver was going to catch fire in Falman's hands. Roy wondered how on earth the skittish warrant officer had ever survived basic training…

Then again, he had requested Falman to his retinue on account of his brains not his…

Anyway.

"It's… it's just as I said, sir," stammered Falman, "I found the death certificates of one Neumann and Maria Osterhagen. Everything appears to be in order, sir. According to the paper pushers, the causes of death were crush-induced rhabdomyolysis resulting in almost instantaneous renal failure."

Mustang fought the urge to scratch a letter opener across his desk. Then he remembered that his small apartment workdesk belonged to _him_ , not Eastern Command, and put the letter opener back into one of the drawers.

On principle, he never liked to do work at home. He could hardly be induced to do it _at the office_ , never mind in his precious and fleeting spare time. While he prided himself on being a brilliant tactician and a powerful alchemist, Roy drudged through his administrative work at the speed of a glacier. He hated it. Little progress had ever been made without a significant amount of pushing, prodding, pleading, and threatening on Lieutenant Hawkeye's part. Roy didn't think the law of equivalent exchange applied to him in his administrative capacity. Regardless of the time or energy Riza spent getting him to do his job, he couldn't seem to muster more than the occasional grumble, a black look shot in Riza's direction, and slipshod reports signed in triplicate.

But something had been bothering him since the visit to the Osterhagen estate, aside from Fullmetal's swooning session –– Roy reminded himself to add that little episode to his repertoire of barbs. During the Isaac McDougal disaster a couple of weeks previously, Roy had been put in charge of apprehending the criminal. The Flame Alchemist had been painstakingly careful in evacuating key parts of Central City before any fighting erupted, since confrontations between current and former state alchemists tended to spell misfortune for the infrastructure.

The death of Neumann and Maria Osterhagen, and the paralysis of their only heir, had been an economy-size black mark on Roy's record, and his superiors had delighted in reminding him of the fact. Somehow, he'd overlooked one of Amestris's most prominent families as they convalesced in a townhouse near Central Command… right in the path of the Freezer.

Perhaps it was due to his guilt. More likely, it was his injured pride as a soldier and leader. But after getting roped into the mess with Fullmetal and William's soul binding, Roy had decided to reopen the Osterhagen case. Warrant Officer Falman was the resident eidetic, so the Colonel had sent him to dredge up the death certificates.

Hearing Falman regurgitate what Roy already knew made the Flame Alchemist's bones ache and his fingers twitch.

He felt a sudden gnawing desire to set something on fire. It didn't matter what, so long as that something was burning.

"Did you call me just to say you found nothing?" he asked wearily.

"Not quite, sir. You see, during my digging I remembered something from the McDougal incident."

"You did?" Of course he did, you idiot, Roy reprimanded himself. Falman remembered _everything_. It was uncanny, and slightly unsettling. "But you weren't in Central with me during the attack, Warrant Officer."

"No, sir, but I have family who live in Central. Since most of the city had been evacuated, and being as they weren't able to provide me with a temporary number beforehand, I rang Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes, who put me in touch with Doctor Knox, the Central General coroner."

Roy frowned grimly. Checking on family members by consulting the casualty list? Even by Falman's methodical standards, it was still rather bleak. "And was your family safe?"

"Yes, sir," said Falman brightly. "I had asked Doctor Knox to describe the physical characteristics and detail the causes of death of each of his, well… _residents_. I am fairly well-acquainted with my family's physiognomy, sir, so I was able to discount their being among the victims. According to Doctor Knox, and because of your evacuation efforts, sir, most of the dead were military police."

"And the Osterhagens," added Roy.

Falman hesitated. "That's the thing, sir. What I remembered while perusing the Osterhagen death certificates just now were the causes of death listed by Doctor Knox a few weeks ago. None of them had been crush-induced."

Roy's grip tightened around the receiver. "What?"

"The military police killed, sir, were killed by penetrating trauma… stab wounds, ballistic trauma, open lacerations. And, of course, many of them were frozen solid, or suffered third degree burns caused by superheated steam, all consistent with the Freezer's modus operandi. But none of them were crushed by falling infrastructure, sir. Not a single one in Doctor Knox's morgue."

"Are you suggesting the Osterhagen's cause of death was falsified, Warrant Officer?"

"I can't say for sure, sir, so I called Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes again tonight."

That took some bravery, thought Mustang. "What did you ask him?"

"Well, he talked about his little girl for a while… evidently she drew a picture of a butterfly which the Lieutenant-Colonel is seriously considering framing and sending to you, sir."

"Cut to the point, Warrant Officer," said Mustang through gritted teeth.

"Sir," acknowledged Falman. "After introductions, I asked the Lieutenant-Colonel if, prior to the Freezer's attack, there had been any reports of explosions in or around Central City."

"Your reasoning?"

"My intuition, sir. The Osterhagens were manufacturers of military-grade propellant."

Good on you, Falman! Roy sat up straighter in his chair "And what did Hughes say?"

"Turns out there had been an explosion, sir. Just one week prior to Major McDougal's attack. In a factory just south of Central City."

The Colonel pinched the bridge of his nose. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the death certificates of the Osterhagens had been tampered with. It could have been a simple clerical error, made during the chaos following McDougal's rampage.

But Mustang knew Gray Rosin factored into things, somehow. He didn't trust her, and if he'd inadvertently allowed the Elrics to fall into one of her schemes…

"What else can you tell me, Vato?"

"Sir, Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes said the factory fire had been a strange pearly-white color, with a fast and hot burn. I am fairly well acquainted with chemical propellants, sir, and I believe the explosion was caused by nitroglycerine—"

"Nitroglycerine!" Roy jumped back from his desk so quickly he nearly knocked over his chair and dropped the phone.

"Er… yes, sir. And that the only victims of the explosion were––"

"Two corpses too charred to recognize?" finished Mustang savagely.

"Uh, yes. Yes, sir."

"Falman. Call Breda and Fuery. Rouse Havoc from whatever drunken stupor he's in. Meet me at Eastern Command Center. Understood?"

Roy could almost hear Falman's boots clicking together over the phone. "Sir!"

He slammed the receiver onto its cradle. He didn't bother with his uniform. He buttoned his shirt and grabbed his black greatcoat from his hatstand. He fought to keep his temper under control. He felt as though beads of molten ore were running like insects under his skin.

Gray had lied to him. The Osterhagens hadn't been killed by McDougal. They'd died in one of their own factories, from a chemical explosion caused by the same propellant currently sitting in the powder kegs of armories across Amestris.

It made sense why the higher-ups had wanted to cover the Osterhagens' true cause of death, thought Roy angrily. Couldn't have military morale take another nosedive so soon after Ishval.

What a mess. And he'd gone and dragged Fullmetal and his little brother into it.

Roy's reached for his keys on the countertop, and when his hand fell through open air, he remembered he'd lent Hawkeye the car for the night. He'd have to gather her too, he supposed.

Mustang slipped into his shoes. He flung open his front door…

And nearly ran smack into Alphonse Elric.

"Colonel!" the boy's voice nearly cracked with fear. "Colonel, I'm so sorry, she told me to do it, I'm so sorry…"

"Calm down, Alphonse," Roy put a hand on the armored boy's arm. He peered into the dark slits where he imagined the younger Elric's eyes should have been. Roy couldn't read Alphonse. It unsettled him. "What's wrong?"

"It's Miss Rosin, sir!" Roy's blood chilled. "She's turned William's suit of armor into one of those… those…"

"A golem," said Mustang, the Kaolin Alchemist's plan already starting to become painfully clear.

"And sir…" Alphonse sounded like he wanted to cry; his voice was tiny when he said, "she's got Lieutenant Hawkeye!"


	9. Eight for a Wish

"Al!"

Alphonse's head shot up. An indistinct speck of red and gold bounced up and down in front of Eastern Command, its automail arm glinting silver under the gaslamps.

"Brother!"

Alphonse picked up his pace, leaving Colonel Mustang gasping behind him. As Al drew closer to the front gate of headquarters, he noted other familiar faces. Lieutenants Havoc and Breda stood on either side of Brother, the former still rubbing sleep from his eyes and the later standing with his arms crossed, looking distinctly unhappy. Breda's uniform front was unbuttoned over his nightshirt, and Havoc's blond hair was all sticking up in one direction. Warrant Officer Falman stood slightly behind them, coordinating military movements with Master Sergeant Fuery, who tapped his headset and occasionally barked commands into his radio.

Alphonse was impressed; when the Colonel said his men worked quickly, he wasn't exaggerating.

Around Mustang's four officers stood a dozen other Amestrian soldiers, their blue uniforms marbled gray, like dirty snow, under the flickering light of the gaslamps and the thick wafts of fog. At least three times as many military police surrounded them, armed to the teeth with pistols and shotguns and bolt action rifles. Alphonse recognized a few from his earlier reconnaissance with Lieutenant Hawkeye. Most of the men and women, however, looked bleary-eyed and haggard, roused from their sleep in the small hours of the morning.

Alphonse ran to stand in front of Brother. Edward looked drawn and tired. His face was alarmingly pale, his mouth pressed into a thin, bloodless line. Purple bags tugged at his eyes. His red cloak seemed to drown him.

"Brother! You should be resting! What are you doing here?"

Edward crossed his arms and glared at Alphonse. Al shrunk back under the intensity of his brother's cold yellow eyes. "What the hell sort of question is that?" he demanded. "I'm the one who should be asking _you_ that!"

"Brother, I––"

"Don't _brother_ me! I wake up for a freaking sandwich and a glass of water and you're nowhere to be found! I spent half the night canvasing East City for you!" Edward poked Alphonse's break plate with one automail finger. "And then I get to Eastern Headquarters and Havoc tells me you're running around with Colonel Bastard!"

"Put a sock in it, Fullmetal…" huffed Colonel Mustang, bent over from exertion. Alphonse instantly felt terrible. With Hawkeye –– and consequently, the Colonel's car –– gone, the two had run the distance from the Colonel's flat to Eastern Headquarters. Al realized Mustang was probably trying to keep himself from falling over from the lactic acid in his legs.

Havoc peeved at Brother's remark, looked down at Edward and grumbled, "Way to throw me under the bus, Chief."

Ed ignored him, rounding on Mustang. "What's the big deal, Colonel? You've summoned half the army!" Brother did a double take. "And you're not even in uniform!"

The Colonel, usually ready with some pithy retort to his subordinate's insolence, just snarled savagely, "If you're not going to be of any help, Fullmetal, then get out of my way!"

Edward's eyes went saucer-wide and Mustang breezed past him, the tail-ends of his great coat smacking the small alchemist in the face.

"Brother," said Alphonse quietly, silently willing Brother not to do anything rash.

Edward muttered something insulting under his breath. But even the Fullmetal Alchemist could tell things were serious. And in such cases, he knew to leave the Colonel well enough alone. He may have been brazen, thought Alphonse, but Edward wasn't stupid.

"Al, what the hell's going on…"

"It's Miss Rosin," said Al quietly. He watched Mustang go to talk with Havoc and Breda. The Colonel said something to them, and Havoc's brows furrowed in anger. He spat something, and Mustang nodded. Even Breda's usually schooled expression wavered as his eyes widened. Falman's face fell, and Fuery sagged, but both were too busy to indulge the distraction.

The Colonel had told them about Gray… and about Lieutenant Hawkeye.

"Gray!" Ed's fists clenched. "What happened? Did something go wrong with the transmutation?!"

"No, it's…" Alphonse looked down at his feet. Unfortunately, Edward was just the right height to see Al's hands tremble. "Your… your transmutation was a success. It worked perfectly, Brother."

"Then what's the––"

"She lied to us!" cried Alphonse, the fear and hurt and sheer _guilt_ he'd been bottling up inside his armor finally bursting. "She told us Will was still alive and aware in his old body but he _wasn't_ … he… he was brain dead! The whole time!"

Horror rippled across Ed's face. His voice went small and soft: "What do you mean, Al…"

"We transmuted a human being without a mind! And now Gray is using her alchemy to control the suit of armor, to turn him into a monster." Alphonse stifled a sob. He buried his head in his hands until his words were muffled. "It's my fault, Brother. I talked you into it. I told you to transmute Will's soul. I thought… I thought we could help him. I thought I could be there for him." He wanted to cry. At that moment, Alphonse would have given anything to be able to cry. "I did it again, Ed. I… I messed everything up. I killed Mom and took away your arm and now… now… I've destroyed Will, too! It's my fault… it's my fault…"

The steel plates of Alphonse's armor vibrated against each other, his whole body shuddering. His hulking, cold, steel body, just as abhorrent and monstrous as the golem sitting in the Osterhagen estate.

A being made of clay, unable to reason, or feel, or love anymore.

Because of him, the human transmutation all those years ago had failed. Alphonse hadn't been strong enough. He'd messed something up, some part of the formula, some vital calculation… and then he'd gone and gotten himself trapped on the Other Side. Brother had sacrificed his arm to drag Alphonse's worthless soul back home. Al couldn't save his Mom, he couldn't save Brother, and he couldn't save one broken boy in a wheelchair. He'd ruined everything. Again.

Alphonse suddenly wished Ed hadn't bothered to bond his soul to a suit of armor.

"Al."

He wished Edward had left him on the Other Side.

"Alphonse."

Left him to fade away forever.

"Alphonse!"

Al's head jerked out of his hands. He looked down at Edward, whose arms hung limply at his side. The mist had dampened his hair, plastering gold to his forehead. He smiled a small, sad smile.

"It's not your fault, Al."

Alphonse's voice caught in his throat. "Brother…"

"It's not your fault," he said again, more firmly, holding up a hand to silence Alphonse's protests. "I performed the transmutation. I made that choice."

"But I––"

"Because I wanted to save Will, too."

For a moment, Alphonse was too stunned to speak. It was Edward who filled the adjacent silence:

"The only person to blame is Gray," said Ed. His words were like steel. "And we're gonna set things right, Al. We're gonna do right by Will, and we're gonna set things right."

"How?" asked Al meekly.

"Well…" Ed stabbed a thumb over his shoulder towards the Colonel, "it looks like the human torch over there has an idea."

"He'd already called his men by the time I found him," said Alphonse thoughtfully. He put aside his guilt; though it remained, stained onto his soul like his blood seal, for now, he had other things to worry about. "I think he knows what Gray's up to."

"Then let's ask him."

Edward marched up to his superior officer, Alphonse following at a careful distance behind. The assembled officers and military police looked at the two brothers curiously, one tiny teenager in gaudy clothing and another one in a massive suit of medieval armor, but none of them said anything aloud. "Colonel!" called Ed.

Mustang turned around. His ignition gloves were on, Alphonse noted uneasily. They always made the younger Elric nervous. "Decided to be of some help, Fullmetal?"

Edward scowled. After a moment, he admitted stiffly, not looking the Colonel in the eye, "We were the ones who performed the soul binding. We started it, and I don't intend for Gray to finish it."

"Then follow me," growled Mustang. Edward, for once in his fifteen years of life, obeyed.

As Mustang lead them past his retinue, Alphonse saw Ed counting heads. Havoc, Breda, Falman, Fuery... then Brother realized where he was walking –– two steps behind the Colonel's left shoulder –– and abruptly stopped. Alphonse felt something roll in his stomach. The guilt returned with a vengeance, crashing against the inside of his helmet like a breaking wave.

"Colonel," asked Ed quietly, "where's Lieutenant Hawkeye?"

Mustang froze. Alphonse saw his back muscles tighten; maybe it came from being in too many fights, but Al figured the Colonel wanted to ignore all the particulars of mustering a military force and march on the Osterhagen estate himself, setting the whole hillside on fire in the process.

"She's with Gray," said the Colonel inaudibly. "We are treating her status as MIA."

Ed recoiled. "What! But she's––"

" _She's not here, Fullmetal_. Lieutenant Hawkeye's absence has no standing in this military proceeding. We will defend Eastern Command. This ground will not fall." With that, the Colonel stalked off to talk to the head of the military police.

Ed watched him go. The look on Brother's face was almost pitying. "I think," said Ed quietly, "that Gray just fireproofed herself."

Alphonse didn't need an explanation to know exactly what Brother meant. He had been thinking the same thing.

Colonel Mustang was a complicated man. But in many ways, thought Alphonse sadly, he was a very simple man, too.

"Chief!" Lieutenant Havoc waved them over. "You'd better snapt-to. The Colonel is giving the briefing."

Edward and Alphonse fell into line beside Breda and Havoc. Falman stood behind Edward –– which made Ed squirm, shadowed by the much, _much_ taller man –– and Alphonse heard Fuery's radio crackling at his back. Colonel Mustang paced in front of the columns of soldiers, swinging his arms at his sides, which flashed his ignition gloves –– and the brutally spartan array for flame alchemy –– for everyone to see. His voice rang out resonant and strong:

"Listen up!" he bellowed. Alphonse found himself standing to attention despite himself. Even Ed looked impressed by the Colonel's air of authority. "We have confirmed that Grace Lambert Rosin, a state-certified alchemist formerly known by the honorific Kaolin, intends to launch an attack on the East City armory at these headquarters!"

Ed turned to Alphonse and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "The armory?"

"That's what the Colonel told me. On the run over here, he said he suspected Gray's target after receiving a report from Falman."

"So she wasn't gonna go after officers, or government officials, like that Freezer guy? This isn't revenge for Ishval?"

"No," murmured Alphonse. Remembering what Lieutenant Hawkeye had told him, he intoned, "Gray is a woman of duty. It's unlikely she really regretted anything she did in Ishval."

"Then what?"

"According to intelligence reports obtained by Warrant Officer Falman and corroborated by Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes in Central," continued Mustang, grabbing the Elrics' attention, "a few weeks before Isaac McDougal's attack, there was a massive chemical explosion in a propellant factory in Nefkaum, killing eminent Amestrian munitions manufacturers Neumann and Maria Osterhagen and critically wounding their son William."

There was murmuring among the soldiers. Ed's eyes widened.

"Grace Lambert Rosin has served the Osterhagen family since her tenure in Ishval," said the Colonel, "and since she holds the military grade propellant responsible for their deaths, she finds herself duty-bound to destroy the military depots. She abides by her fierce allegiance to her employers... and her own ideals. She holds little to no regard for the lives of soldiers or civilians. This makes her extremely, extremely dangerous. Using her knowledge of alchemy as well as a militarized cohort," Alphonse noted how Colonel Mustang didn't mention Will, "her intention is to march on the East City armory and destroy the munitions supplies! We are going to stop her."

There was a resounding chorus of "Sir!"

"This woman is a highly decorated soldier and state alchemist. Consider her armed and extremely dangerous." The Flame Alchemist's black eyes boiled in the lamplight. "If she resists, shoot to kill. Take your positions!"

"SIR!"

Havoc gave Edward a clap on the shoulder before leading his squadron to the west gate of Eastern Command. Breda left with his unit to guard the front gate, while Falman and Fuery set up a temporary command station to coordinate the defensive perimeter. The military armor was couched well within the compound, in an underground bunker adjacent to the main building. With Mustang's forces cordoning the outer perimeter and patrolling the grounds, it was going to be very difficult to reach the armory.

"What tipped the Colonel off," wondered Ed aloud. He began to rotate his automail arm in its socket, like he always did before a big fight.

"Falman, I suppose," said Alphonse. "And... something Gray said to me. She told me I 'might even be amenable' to her idea. Remember what you said about the Osterhagens, Brother?"

"Yeah. I called them warmongers." He grimaced. "If we are the dogs of the military, then people like the Osterhagens were the vultures feeding off the scraps."

"Gray knew we didn't approve of the family or their weapons trade. Maybe she thought we'd be happy about her destroying the armory?"

"I don't take too kindly to people tricking me into performing alchemy, enslaving critically injured kids, or kidnapping soldiers," said Ed bitingly, "no matter their reasons."

"Brother…" Alphonse's voice dropped to almost a whisper, "did you notice? The Colonel didn't mention Will in his briefing."

Ed nodded grimly. "If he told them about the soul binding, it'd raise too many questions." Brother looked at his automail arm. "Questions we'd best not answer, Al."

Alphonse understood. The Colonel wasn't protecting William Osterhagen.

He was protecting the Elrics.

A complicated man, indeed.

"Hey, Colonel!" Ed sprinted to join Mustang. Alphonse followed.

Mustang arched an eyebrow when Edward snapped to attention beside him.

"Isn't this old lady like a hundred years old or something? Shouldn't we just march up to her house and lock her in it?"

"In case it had escaped your notice, Gray Rosin is a highly competent state alchemist _with_ an eight-foot-tall suit of armor for a bodyguard. I think my concern is warranted, although your estimable military expertise from your years and years of combat experience is duly noted."

"No need to be an ass about it," grumbled Ed. "I'm betting on her getting ten feet outside her house before she suffers a prolapsed disc or something."

"And in case you _also_ forgot, Fullmetal" said Mustang through gritted teeth, "she has Lieutenant Hawkeye. Which means she also has Lieutenant Hawkeye's –– MY –– car."

"…oh."

Mustang counted on his fingers. "She has the skills," one, "muscle," two, " _and_ transportation," three, "necessary to launch an attack."

"Oh," Ed parroted.

"So," the Colonel crossed his arms, "are you going to help or not?"

"I already told you I would, bastard." Ed grinned maniacally. "What's the plan?"

"Hold this ground," said Mustang simply. "The main road leading from Eastern Headquarters branches towards the Osterhagen estate. To reach the armory, Gray will be approaching from the west. Havoc's squad is set up to intercept her well before she reaches the compound, nevermind the armory."

Alphonse nodded eagerly. He knew all too well Gray Rosin's power, but the Colonel and Brother were state alchemists, too. Whereas Gray hadn't practiced martial alchemy since the war, internal struggles across the East had kept Edward and Mustang in practice and allowed them to hone their skills to frightening effectiveness. Alphonse didn't discredit himself as an alchemist, either. Besides, there was the combined might of Mustang's retinue, plus a handful of Eastern Command's officers and several times that many military police. Even with William Osterhagen acting as her muscle, Gray Rosin would need a small army to break the ranks of the military forces under Colonel Mustang's command.

Suddenly, Alphonse felt Brother freeze up beside him. When Alphonse looked down, all the blood had drained from Edward's face.

"Brother?"

Ed ignored him. "Colonel…" he said quietly, his words almost a whisper, "you said Gray had the Lieutenant's car?"

Colonel Mustang peered at him critically. "Yes."

"So, theoretically, she could drive anywhere she wanted?"

"For the sake of expediency, she is likely to take the most direct route from the estate. But yes," Mustang sounded bemused, "she could drive anywhere. Although why she'd make a detour––"

"Colonel," Ed interrupted him, "where's the closest graveyard to Eastern Command?"

Alphonse stiffened. The Colonel's eyes went wide.

"What?"

"The closest graveyard, Colonel!" said Ed, more desperately, " _where is it?_ "

Absolute dread crossed Mustang's face. "It's on the banks of the river, just north of here. Fullmetal, you aren't suggesting…"

"A car. We need a car!"

Mustang didn't hesitate. "HAVOC!" he bellowed. About twenty yards away, Lieutenant Havoc jumped like he'd been shot. "YOUR CAR!"

"Uh, yes sir!"

Havoc sprinted over, his keys already fished from his pocket and in his hand. He surrendered them dutifully to his superior officer. "What's up, Colonel?"

"Hold the fort here, Havoc," ordered Mustang as he unlocked a government-issued jeep. Ed jumped into the passenger seat, while Alphonse crawled into the back; he was thankful for the lack of a roof. "I have reason to believe the enemy's forces are going to be much bigger than we originally anticipated. Expect a large-scale attack."

"Roger that, Boss. We can hold it down here. Hey, and Boss?" Havoc stuck his head in the driver's window as Mustang closed the door. "Bring the Lieutenant home if you can, yeah?"

The Colonel didn't say anything to that. He started the car and drove off, screeching around the corner, leaving Havoc in a vortex of dust and swirling fog.

The car took a turn a little too sharply and Ed was thrown against the passenger door. Alphonse held on for dear life. He winced as some Easy City resident's bins got run over.

"Jeez, Colonel, at this rate we'll be doing Gray's job for her!"

"Next time, you can drive!" snapped Mustang, jerking the steering wheel like a man possessed. They narrowly missed a telephone pole.

"Maybe I will!"

Another turn; Alphonse could have sworn the tires left the ground. "Your tiny legs wouldn't even reach the gas pedal!"

"WHOSE LEGS ARE YOU CALLING––"

"Brother!" Alphonse had never been more grateful to see a dark, foreboding graveyard looming out of the fog in the middle of the night. "We're here!"

"Heh." Mustang floored the brake, almost sending Edward through the front windshield. "How's that for speed?"

"Bastard."

"Come on!"

Alphonse leapt from the car. He hurdled the low perimeter wall of the graveyard and wove through the plots, careful not to disturb any of the stones. The line of gaslamps ended half a block away, leaving the graveyard in absolute shadow. He could hear the Colonel and Brother behind him, still muttering obscenities to each other as they stumbled through the dark. He heard the scuff of a boot, the clank of steel automail, and a long-winded curse from Edward. The fog seemed to glow an ethereal silver, the tiny water particles catching the light from down the street. Somewhere over the hill, behind almost a quarter of a mile of gravestones, the East River rushed along its banks, angry and swollen from the afternoon's rain.

Alphonse moved towards the rise in the graveyard, where he could look down towards the river, and perhaps distinguish Hawkeye's car in the darkness. He went to jump over a line of companion plots… when something grabbed his foot.

Momentum carried Al's upper body forward and he ended up crashing onto the ground. If he still had his original body, the fall would have knocked the wind out of him. He heard Brother call his name. Alphonse glanced over his shoulder, and gasped in horror.

A necrotic arm had burst from the dirt. Its fingers clung to Alphonse's ankle, the grip like an iron vice. Alphonse fought to keep a scream of terror bottled inside his chest. As he watched, the arm pushed away the thin layer of dirt –– Alphonse realized the body had been dug up and then shallowly reburied –– until a shoulder appeared, and then a chest.

But only half of a head. Most of it had rotted away, leaving nothing but black, maggot-ridden meat in place of skin and muscle, exposing peroxide-white bone stripped clean by the creatures under the earth.

The remnants of the skull were tattooed in complex alchemical symbols, the charcoal runes as black as the rotting flesh.

"Alphonse!" cried Ed.

"Brother! Stay back!"

"Damn her," he heard Mustang snarl. The Colonel snapped his fingers and the reanimated corpse erupted in flames. It continued to hold steadfastly to Al's ankle until its fingers crumbled into ash. Al hastily scrambled to his feet, kicking the skeleton dust off him in disgust.

"This isn't good," muttered Ed. He clapped his hands. There was a brief whiff of something vaguely electrical, like burning solder and ozone, and he transmuted his automail arm into a small, double-edged blade, stainless steel and wickedly sharp.

The fog whirlpooled as more monstrosities staggered into the small clearing. Most of them had rotted away, their naked bones protruding from black, wriggling flesh. White maggots dropped from their eye sockets onto the grass. The ones with their legs still intact moved remarkably quickly, until they had completely encircled Alphonse, Edward, and Colonel Mustang. Their teeth clacked together, their perpetual skull-grins stapled to their faces.

Every one had the alchemical runes tattooed on the loose, rotting skin, on the necrotic matter. In some cases, directly on the bone itself.

"I told you, Alphonse…"

Al raised his fists. Ed barred his blade across his chest. Colonel Mustang raised his hands to snap.

Gray Rosin stood at the rear of her army of golems, leaning heavily on the monstrous form of Will. When she smiled grimly, her teeth were the same color white as the bones of the dead.

"You shouldn't have run off."


	10. Nine for a Kiss

"Brother!"

Alphonse leapt towards Ed as Grace Rosin touched her palm to the ground. There was a sudden waft of rain-soaked soil, of molder and rot and decay. Half-obscured by the mist, a transmutation array –– a striated pentagram with the sagittarius astrological sigil inscribed in the middle, the alchemical symbol for ceration –– began to glow cobalt blue.

In the small distance to Edward, Alphonse thought furiously, his instincts honed from his spars with Brother and the endless hours spent in study amongst their father's old books and Teacher's recitations. He remembered: ceration was an alchemical process that deliquesced solid objects, imbibing a hard, dry substance with a highly-concentrated volume of water to make the substance softer. Alphonse remembered the rain from earlier that afternoon; the soil was already saturated, sloughing down the roads and through the gutters in muddy torrents. Gray Rosin had set her trap long before the Elrics and Colonel Mustang arrived…

Alphonse knocked Edward out of the way as the ground disintegrated. The soused patches of dirt covering the burial plots gave way. Geysers of mud erupted across the graveyard. Colonel Mustang found himself flailing his arms in midair, the ground giving way to a thick, sticky soup of slag and mud. The solid earth beneath his feet dissolved into something not unlike quicksand. Alphonse watched in horror as the Colonel sank up to his armpits. The more he struggled, the faster he foundered in the gray sludge. He tried to prop his head above the lip of the plot only for his ignition glove to disappear into the mire.

"Dammit, Kaolin!" Mustang roared.

Gray touched her other palm to the transmutation circle. The gray sludge hardened like concrete, trapping the Colonel in the hole. His face reddened as he tried to free himself.

"I was hoping to incapacitate all three of you," croaked Gray. She looked over at Alphonse and Edward, who had tumbled across the grass into a clearing, surrounded by Gray's shambling golems. "Your natural tendency to protect your brother is formidable, Alphonse."

Al braced himself on one knee to keep from squashing Edward, who lay sprawled on his back with his arms extended. Brother was bruised, winded, and madder than Teacher with a toothache, but at least he wasn't up to his chin in concrete like Colonel Mustang.

Having an artificial body had its advantages, thought Alphonse grudgingly. The steel plates of his armor fit together like scales on a lizard. The slightest movement in the ground sent vibrations racing up Alphonse's legs, making his armor jolt and the steel plates clank together. Without his sense of touch and smell and taste to distract him, Al's sense of _hearing_ had become hypersensitive. On some basic level, he had become better attuned to the movement of the land. Even his steel armor was an iron composite, like the iron ore running in silver-gray veins through the bedrock of the earth. An integral part of his being had come from the ground, and Alphonse could sense instabilities like a cat before an earthquake, or birds before a forest fire. He'd been able to detect the slight alchemical volatility under his feet from the moment he, Ed, and Colonel Mustang had entered the graveyard.

He got to his feet quickly before hoisting Brother up by the hood of his cloak. Edward stood back to back with Alphonse as the golems circled them, their dry teeth clacking together. Ed kept his automail blade barred across his chest even as he threw his other arm over his nose. His face had gone very pale. The smell of necrosis and decay was overwhelming.

For the second time in as many minutes, Alphonse was thankful for his armored body.

"You two are tenacious," said Gray, her words weary and tired. She braced herself on William. Fresh liver spots peppered the backs of her hands. Her tight cap of silvery hair was snow white. Her carefully tailored clothes hung from her stooped, emaciated frame. She kept blinking, as though she couldn't see properly. What Alphonse thought was the fog passing over her eyes were filmy cataracts, spider-webbing across her corneas.

In that moment, surrounded by legions of decomposing golems, Gray Rosin looked ancient. She resembled her reanimated corpses far more than the tall, dignified state alchemist she'd been that afternoon.

It took everything in Alphonse's being not to feel profoundly sorry for her.

"Let the Colonel go," ordered Edward, his voice slightly stuffy from his blocked nose, but sharing none of Alphonse's pity.

Gray arched an eyebrow. "And have him reduce my golems to ash with a snap of his fingers? I know how Flame operates, Mr. Elric." She glanced in Colonel Mustang's direction. "Trust me, his current state is far better than the alternative."

"And why should we trust you?!" snarled Ed.

"Because I don't mean any of you any harm," she said firmly, her small, frail voice hardening. "I never did. Not you or your brother. Not the Colonel, nor the soldiers surrounding Eastern Command. If you had just stayed at the estate, Alphonse, Will and I could have disposed of the armaments quickly and quietly and none of this posturing would have been necessary!"

"You won't reach headquarters…" hissed Mustang, still straining to extricate himself.

"Forgive me if I don't take your word for it, Colonel."

"Then take mine!"

Edward swung his arm in a wide arc, decapitating the first row of golems. Separated from their skulls –– and the alchemical seals scrawled across their foreheads –– their bones unknitted lay still on the grass. The heads continued to gnash their teeth until Alphonse crushed them into a fine gray powder under his feet.

Ed and Al spun through the undead army, back to back, working in tandem, chopping limbs from reanimated bodies and crushing the remnants into dust. One golem's bony fingers knotted in Edward's cloak, tightening its grip and yanking until Ed began to choke. Alphonse brought his fist down on the skeleton's head hard enough to snap its spine in half. Al didn't take his alchemy chalk from his waistcloth; the golems were so dry and brittle, just crashing into them was enough to break them apart.

But as many golems as Ed and Al destroyed, more shambled over the hill to fill the ranks. Edward was a dancing whirlwind of death, but the golems just kept coming.

"You pests," growled Gray.

Suddenly, William exploded towards Alphonse. Al yelped as Will's fist found his visor, sending Al's head flying off his torso and towards the street. Alphonse's body stumbled, his hands going to the empty space where his helmet used to be. Will's hand went for the red blood seal on the inside of Al's armor…

"AL!"

Edward clapped his hands and a pillar of dirt erupted from the ground, catapulting Will back towards Gray. Ed crouched in front of Alphonse, his teeth barred, shielding his much larger younger brother with his automail blade. Alphonse would have found the image funny if it weren't for the bloodlust in Edward's eyes.

Will regained his footing and sprinted for them, moving astonishingly quickly for his enormous size. Edward clapped again, transmuting the gravestones into a three-foot thick stone wall between him and the careening suit of armor. The barrier didn't stop Will's momentum, and Alphonse lifted Brother out of the way right before he was crushed by Will's foot and the flying masonry.

"Dammit!" gasped Ed, wiping the dust out of his eyes. "How strong is this guy?"

"I don't care how strong he is!" said Mustang from a distance. "There are too many civilians between here and Eastern Command. You can't let him reach the city!"

"How the hell am I supposed to do that?!"

"Figure it out, Fullmetal!"

"Too busy hanging out in your hole, Colonel?!"

"Shut up!"

William swung a fist. Edward leapt out of the way a hair's breadth before Will removed Ed's head from his shoulders. The swing crushed a mausoleum door like it was made of wet paper.

Alphonse, having screwed his helmet back onto his shoulders, rushed towards Will. The younger Elric thought back to the sparing matches with Teacher, back when he was still in his original body, and Teacher was so much taller than him. He tucked his chin down towards his chest and rolled his shoulders slightly forward. Alphonse braced himself on bent legs before exploding forward. He wrapped his hands around the back of Will's neck and drove his elbows into the other boy's shoulder plates, leveraging Will's head down. Alphonse thrust his knee into Will's face, hoping to dislodge Will's helmet and expose the blood seal for Brother…

William dug his head into Alphonse's chest and grasped Al's upper arms. For one agonizingly long moment, Alphonse found himself looking directly into William's helmet, into the cold, empty holes that seemed to go on forever, so dark Al couldn't even see the back of the visor. Suddenly, Will swung Alphonse _over_ his back, throwing Al towards a horrified Edward. Ed made a very undignified noise as his younger brother landed in a pile at his feet.

"Alphonse!"

Al struggled to move. His armor had caved it where he'd hit the ground. His arms felt loose in his shoulder sockets. If he had a flesh and blood body, he'd be dead. Spine broken, head crushed, internal bleeding. Crush trauma. As it was, he was lucky his armor hadn't broken into a thousand pieces all over the graveyard.

Will immediately lost interest in the Elrics. He sprinted for the perimeter wall, vaulting towards the street. Legions of Gray's golems shambled after him, as though Will had acquired a long shadow of corpses.

"Hey!" Edward ran after him. "Get back here!"

"Yes, Fullmetal," Alphonse heard the Colonel mutter, "I'm sure that'll give him significant pause for thought."

Ed clapped. Huge spikes broke through the cobblestones, skewering several of the golems. Will crossed his arms in front of his chest and barreled through Ed's barricade like it wasn't there. He didn't pay Edward any notice, which likely annoyed Brother far more than the relative uselessness of his alchemy.

"Ed!" cried Alphonse as his brother rushed down the street.

"You heard Colonel Bastard: I have to keep Will from destroying the city!" Ed yelled over his shoulder, "You take care of those zombies, Al!"

Alphonse wanted to follow Brother, but he knew Ed was right. William was just the spearhead. There was still the army of golems to worry about, warriors who couldn't feel pain, who couldn't die because they were already dead.

Whose alchemical conditioning meant they wouldn't hesitate to take out anyone, soldier or civilian, who stood in their way.

Al looked back towards East River, where more golems were lurching out of the fog. Brother hadn't thinned their numbers by much. They were still swarming over the hill, scuttling through the grass with the rapid, jerking movements of insects, crawling over each other in their hurry to reach the city. Alphonse felt his heart sink; there was no way he could destroy all of them before Will reached Eastern Command. And if even a few found their way into East City, there were any number of innocent civilians between the graveyard and headquarters. So many lives…

Alphonse took out his chalk. He scrawled a hasty transmutation circle on a flat stone plot and touched his palms to the cool surface. Several feet away, the cement encasing Colonel Mustang transmuted into a giant hand. It snaked out of the hole in the ground and towards Alphonse. The fingers unfurled, dropping the Colonel quite unceremoniously onto the damp grass.

"Ow," croaked Mustang, laying eagle-spread on the ground.

"Sorry, sir!"

"No... ouch... no, worries, Alphonse." The Flame Alchemist brushed lumps of smelly gray mud from his uniform. His movements were stiff and jerky from being trapped in the cement, and for one unsettling moment, Alphonse thought the Colonel moved a little too much like one of Gray's golems.

Speaking of… "Uh, sir?"

"Wha––oh. Those."

Mustang looked over the hill towards the masses of reanimated corpses. Some were dangerously close to spilling over the perimeter wall and into the streets.

The Flame Alchemist curled a lip in distaste. He took a moment to work out some figures in his head, calculating the complex formulae for his particular brand of alchemy.

Then he snapped one pristine white glove.

Something in the air pressure shifted. A bystander would have suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Alphonse could have sworn he felt the abrupt spike in temperature even with his armored body. The fire rushed over the hillside like a breaking wave, bathing everything in angry red light. The golems swallowed by the flame burned brightly for a few short seconds before disintegrating into piles of ash. Nothing was spared. The golems… the black, sickly trees… the gravestones and small mausoleums… even Lieutenant Havoc's army jeep, the fenders twisting into molten scrap in the heat… everything went up in smoke. The fiery light pierced the night like a beacon at sea, cutting boiling swathes through the darkness. For a moment, the distant lights of East City dimmed as the fire soared high into the black sky.

Then, just as quickly as the inferno raced over the hillside, it exhausted its fuel, and sputtered, leaving nothing but a miasma of thick, oily smoke. Mustang's nose twitched slightly, but otherwise, his expression didn't change.

Alphonse remembered Brother recoiling at the smell of decay permeating the golems. He imagined the smell of cooked meat and burning fat was twice as bad. But it didn't seem to bother the Colonel to any great extent. In fact, he looked disturbingly at ease walking between the piles of ash, kicking the occasional dusty shadow imbrued onto the ground.

Alphonse suspected he knew why. He didn't like to think about it.

Suddenly, Colonel Mustang turned away from his handiwork. He gestured to Alphonse. "Let's go! Your estimable sibling still needs our help."

"Uh… yes sir."

Alphonse and the Colonel sprinted past the charred skeleton of Havoc's car, making towards the main street. They could see the massive imprints from where William's feet had imbedded in the cobblestones, and the scaly impressions on strange, twisting sculptures that had erupted, seemingly from nowhere, out of the brick and cement –– the calling card of alchemical transmutations.

Alphonse had reached the first intersection when he realized the Colonel was no longer following him. Abruptly, Al stopped, searching for Brother's commanding officer.

"Colonel?"

Alphonse looked back towards the graveyard. He went rigid.

Propped against an empty tenement, facing the Colonel from across the wide street, was Grace Rosin.

She didn't look very good.

Mustang tightened his gloves on his wrist. Al thought the crimson transmutation arrays on his gloves looked too much like blood, as though they'd been carved into the flesh of his hand. "That's far enough, Gray."

Gray peered at the younger alchemist through rheumy eyes. Her gnarled, arthritic fingers fought for purchase on the side of the building. Her arms looked thin and brittle, as though a single gust of wind would blow them away. When she spoke, her voice was small and sickly, like she couldn't breath between the words.

"You're wasting your time, Flame," she whispered hoarsely. If the wind had been blowing in the opposite direction, Alphonse wouldn't have been able to hear her. "Will is moving steadily closer to Eastern Command. He is immune to your soldier's bullets… and to Mr. Elric's attacks. Because, as I understand it," Kaolin fixed her vacant, searching stare on Alphonse, "Edward has never bested his armored brother in combat."

She was right. Already, Alphonse could hear screams resounding in the adjacent streets, the crash of broken windows and collapsing cinderbrick as William tore through the city. It didn't sound as though Ed was having much luck in slowing him down, thought Alphonse grimly. More likely, Brother was concentrating on keeping the destruction contained and innocent civilians safe from the armored boy's rampage. Alphonse hoped no one had been hurt…

Gray shook her head, turning back to the Flame Alchemist. "Just leave, Roy. I don't want to kill you if I don't have to."

Colonel Mustang's nostrils flared. "A shame… because I suspect I'd very much enjoy killing you."

"You're no killer, Colonel."

Mustang bared his teeth in a twisted, almost feral emulation of a smile. Something akin to his flames, perhaps a harbinger, perhaps an echo, seemed ripple across his face. "I razed an entire civilization to the ground," he snarled. "I burned women and children alive. I am Bradley's weapon. I am the Flame Alchemist. I am the Hero of Ishval." Mustang's black eyes burned dangerously bright. " _I am a killer_."

Alphonse swallowed down a primal terror seizing up in his stomach. He suppressed the urge to run away as fast as possible, run away from the madman with the fiery eyes…

 _Like birds before a forest fire._

Alphonse forced himself to act; Brother needed their help, and the Colonel would accomplish nothing by setting Gray Rosin –– and consequently, the entire East City block –– on fire.

"I trusted you, Gray," called Al, drawing the old alchemist's attention. "Brother trusted you."

Gray inclined her head slightly, a small concession of acknowledgement. "And that betrayal is my cross to bear, Alphonse. But I will not apologize for what I have done."

"You're turning that boy into a monster!" said Mustang, pointing a gloved finger towards the sounds of destruction, receding further into the distance.

"Will is no more a monster than Alphonse, Colonel."

Al flinched.

"The Osterhagen's hubris killed them and took away Will's chance at a normal life," continued Gray, bitterness coloring her composure. "I intend to make sure that never happens again. Those weapons, those tools of death and destruction, will take no more lives."

"If you're so bent upon retribution for what happened to your employers," snapped Mustang, "then don't drag the next generation into your revenge. You were a soldier, too. You took up arms in Ishval just like the rest of us. You used the weapons that killed Maria and Neumann. You were a state alchemist, _a tool of death and destruction_." He raised his voice, roaring across the sound of the distant battle, "You want revenge, Kaolin? Take it upon yourself! End this."

"She already has," said Alphonse quietly.

Under the light of the lamppost, Gray looked even worse. Her face had grown creased and pale, her skin marred in webs of wrinkles. Her spine curved like a shepherd's crook. All the color had been bleached from her hair. She continually blinked her rheumatic eyes, trying to see clearly through the cataracts. As she shambled down the street, her feet caught on the cobblestones. She teetered blindly at every step. She clung to the wall like lifeline.

The alchemy had aged her. _Was_ aging her.

 _I paid the toll with my own life. Equivalent exchange. I wear the price of my sin like a second skin._

 _Do not presume to lecture me on the nature of the soul, especially when so little of mine is left_.

Alphonse thought of that old house on the hill, the spiderwebs in the corners and the dust on the lintels. A cracked fountain basin filled with dead leaves. Abandoned. Empty. Dead in all the important ways.

Alphonse knew then that Gray would not survive the night.

And Gray knew it, too.

Survival had never been her intention, not when so little of her was left living.

"This fight will be my last," said the old alchemist, as though she could read a nonexistent expression on Alphonse's face, his thoughts inscribed on his helmet like the runes tattooing Gray's undead army. "But I will not allow myself the luxury of the long sleep until my job here is finished."

"If you won't back down," Mustang took a menacing step forward, throwing a long shadow down the street that dwarfed the frail old woman, "then I'll cut you down myself."

"I am far from powerless, Mustang. Martial alchemy was never my forte, but you would do well to be cautious."

The Colonel glanced at Alphonse. "I think Elric the younger will have something to say about that."

Alphonse nodded adamantly. He raised his fists, his hulking body looming over the willowy alchemist.

She was nearly blind, and so thin and brittle a sharp smack would be enough to bring her down. She really did seem like the Kaolin Alchemist, thought Alphonse. A clay figurine, dried-up and delicate and full of cracks. Alphonse wouldn't be the one to damage her; he would just be there for the breaking.

But then Gray's expression hardened to granite, and her single green eye glinted like acid. Fear knotted in Alphonse's throat. "I didn't want to resort to this, Flame Alchemist. I really didn't."

Alphonse saw it before the Colonel. But there was nothing he could do to stop it…

Behind Mustang, where the intersection diverged around an abandoned rent house, a slim, blond woman emerged from an empty doorway, holding a handgun at chest height. Her amber eyes looked splintered, out of focus, like a cracked lens, breaking the picture into a thousand jagged pieces. Purple marks ran down her temples –– the bruises from fingertips holding her head in place. Her face was tattooed with the brutally beautiful geometry of a transmutation array.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye," ordered Grace Rosin, "kill him."


	11. Ten for a Bird

_Author's Note: Oh, friends... we are nearly at the end of our journey together. We have one more chapter after this one. Thank you so much for sticking with it, and I hope the payoff is well worth the investment._

 _This has been an incredibly difficult few months, and even little things like a thoughtful word after a new chapter have meant so much. Getting a notification in my email and reading your wonderful comments were the highlights of my day. Thank you for your kindness._

* * *

Alphonse's stomach plummeted.

He dared to glance at the Colonel.

But the Colonel was fixated on his subordinate… the relief of seeing her again quickly replaced with disbelief and horror.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye?"

Riza Hawkeye's stared somewhere past the Colonel's shoulder, into the darkness at the edge of the city, somewhere Al couldn't follow. For one eternal, agonizing moment, Alphonse wondered if Hawkeye was dead, if Gray had killed her before reanimating her corpse using her alchemy.

And if the Lieutenant was dead… Alphonse suppressed a shudder.

Then there wasn't a force in Amestris strong enough to staunch the tide of the Colonel's fury and grief.

But Alphonse –– and the Colonel, too –– noticed the Lieutenant's pallor. Her face wasn't as pale and bloodless as Gray's other golems. She didn't move as quickly as the reanimated corpses, either, meaning her autonomic nervous system –– which operated independently of Gray's influence –– was still working.

Gray had taken control of a living person. Like Will, the Lieutenant was being forced to do the Kaolin Alchemist's bidding.

Hawkeye raised her pistol, leveling the barrel at Mustang's forehead.

The Colonel's mouth pursed shut. He slowly raised his hands above his head, the deadly sigils on his ignition gloves forgotten, his eyes widening slightly in fear.

But not for Hawkeye, Alphonse realized, his steel body suddenly feeling very cold.

For himself.

"Lieutenant," said the Colonel calmly but firmly; despite the fear evident in his eyes, his voice didn't waver, "you don't want to do this."

"She can't answer, sir," said Alphonse mutely, the small words echoing inside his helmet.

The Kaolin Alchemist shambled towards the sound of the battle, where blazing white bolts of transmutation energy flared against the darkness, and the sound of exploding masonry thundered in the streets. Where Edward fought to contain Will before he killed any innocent people. Gray couldn't be allowed to reach her charge...

Al stepped in the alchemist's path, bending his knees and raising his hands in a fighting stance.

Lieutenant Hawkeye also stepped forward, flicking her safety off. Colonel Mustang took a sharp intake of breath.

Everyone froze.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye," said Gray, still focused on Alphonse, not looking towards the Colonel or his subordinate, "I said kill him."

Mustang hesitated for a moment, his body stiffening in anticipation of a bullet. Then, suddenly, his face cleared. He smiled a scary smile, one where the rest of his face wasn't smiling at all.

"Your alchemy has an instantaneous effect on its victims, correct?" The Colonel's charcoal eyes flashed. "If the Lieutenant was going to shoot me, Gray, she would have done it already."

Alphonse gasped. It was true; the golems were completely enthralled to the Kaolin Alchemist's will. Her alchemy exercised complete control over their somatic nervous systems. There wasn't even a capacity for independent thought or movement. And yet…

Lieutenant Hawkeye, the fastest, surest shot in the Amestrian military, still hadn't fired her gun.

Something volatile and dangerous flickered in Gray's marbled eyes. "Riza," she barked, her words like ice, "shoot Colonel Mustang in the head. Now, please."

Alphonse could see the transmutation energy taking its tole. Equivalent exchange. As Gray concentrated on controlling Lieutenant Hawkeye, something seemed to sap the moisture from her body. Her skin grew as puckered and dry as curling tree bark. The Kaolin Alchemist winced, biting down hard before turning her head and spitting a couple of her teeth into the gutter. She wiped the blood away with the back of her hand.

But Hawkeye still didn't fire.

"Put the gun down, Lieutenant," said Roy gently. There was something uncommonly tender in his words, something near to pure, honest compassion that Alphonse had never heard before. Something that, for some reason, made him desperately sad…

"This isn't you. I've seen you stare down Ishvalan insurgents and rogue alchemists and Maes Hughes with pictures of his daughter. You fought them, and you can fight this. So snap out of it." Some of the Colonel's familiar assertiveness returned, the same imperiousness that had commanded his men in front of Eastern Headquarters. "And that is an order."

Lieutenant Hawkeye's expression stayed fixed. Behind the runes graffitiing her face, she stared slack-jawed, her face soft, her eyes unfocused.

But, Al noticed, his heart clenching, the Lieutenant's hand was shaking. The tremble was so slight, anyone else would have mistaken it for a shiver from the chill night air. But Al knew better. As did Colonel Mustang.

"Lieutenant…" said the Colonel. "Lower your weapon."

"Kill. Him," intoned Gray, her expression twisting into something ugly, so sickly and marred it hardly looked human anymore.

The misty film over the Lieutenant's eyes didn't wane. She didn't give any indication she had heard any of them.

But, as Al watched, a single tear rolled down her cheek, glinting across the neural arrays.

She's fighting, thought Alphonse wretchedly. She won't hurt him. She _can't_...

Gray's fists clenched, her knuckles pressed again the thin, purpling skin. Lieutenant Hawkeye's tremor worsened.

"Do it!"

Roy Mustang began to lower his hands. He took a cautious step towards his adjutant. "Lieutenant Hawkeye, I'm giving you a direct order as your commanding officer. Drop your gun."

"Kill him!"

"I know you're still in there, Lieutenant." He held his hand out for her gun. "I know you won't hurt me. You made a promise."

"KILL HIM!" screamed Gray, her voice cracking.

The sound of the shot split the night.

 _"_ _Colonel!"_

Alphonse turned away from Gray, clanking across the street to where Mustang lay sprawled in the gutter. Blood pooled on the ground around him, running in rivulets between the cracks in the street. Alphonse stifled a thrill of panic; the Colonel wasn't moving. He'd hit his head sharply on the cobblestones. His legs were twisted underneath him. The bloodstain was slowly spreading underneath his greatcoat, turning his white shirt a vivid crimson. Riza stood above him, looking down vacantly. Her gun had dropped to her side. She wouldn't try to harm him again, Alphonse realized; she had followed Gray's directive, and the voice slithering inside the Lieutenant's head had gone quiet.

 _Gray_.

Alphonse Elric screamed. The sound was primeval and gruesome and terrifying, reverberating within the hollow cavern of his armor. He sounded like a monster. He didn't care.

He didn't bother with alchemy. He didn't bother trying to remember his training with Teacher, or his fights with Brother. Alphonse didn't try to labor under the illusion that he was still a little boy. For a moment too brief and fleeting for memory to sustain it, he couldn't even recall what it had been like to have a real flesh and blood body. All he knew was the suit of armor, an extension of his soul, a force of destruction of brute strength. An engine of war. All he saw was the Colonel's blood pooling in the stagnant rainwater and the glazed, horrifyingly empty look in the Lieutenant's eyes...

And a sandy haired boy in a wheelchair, staring at nothing, a light gone out that could never be rekindled.

Alphonse Elric charged the Kaolin Alchemist.

She didn't have time to dodge, and even if she did, her body was too small and frail to leap out of the way. Al caught Gray in the back, hitting her spin with his forearm. It was like running into a scarecrow; there was nothing to act as a counterbalance. She let out a small noise of surprise before stumbling, but she didn't make a sound when she hit the ground, like she weighed nothing at all.

"Get up!" cried Alphonse, his voice breaking with blind, howling anger. "Get up, Gray! You're going to fix this… you're going to set them free!

 _"_ _Get up!"_

She didn't move. Alphonse saw red. He balled his fists. The coward… the coward, coward, coward, _coward…_

He wasn't finished with her yet. He went to grab her collar...

Then he stopped.

Under the corrugated trembling of his armored body, Alphonse felt a long, low silence descend upon East City. It blanketed every surface like a mantle of ash, muffling the small sounds of the world like the press of footsteps in the dust.

Al broke his gaze away from Gray Rosin. A hush had filled the empty streets. Time moved sluggishly, thick and soupy like molasses. The city seemed half-realized, splintered in the fog like something unstitched from a dream. The starless sky was beginning to purple in the east. The people, the buildings, even the still body of the Kaolin Alchemist felt like little more than imaginings, stirrings in the blackness, silhouettes circumscribed by shadow. Alphonse suddenly understood the notion of Lieutenant Hawkeye's sharp interruptions, silver footnotes in the tenebrous margins of the city. Like the world had been folded in on itself, and he was living in the creases.

Something had changed. The sounds of distant battle had died away.

Everything was so still.

Alphonse was surprised when a profound sense of calm suffused through him.

He knelt beside the body of the old woman and slowly turned her over, until she was lying on her back. She was paper-light in Alphonse's hands, almost diaphanous, like smoke. The alchemist gave him a strange look, and Alphonse jolted away from her, dropping her back onto the ground. He looked away, unable to bear the piercing vacantness in the Golem Formator's lifeless eyes.

Eyes like those of her creations.

Gray Rosin was dead.

Alphonse didn't know what did it, in the end. Maybe his push had broken her back. Maybe the prospect of the coming battle had weakened her old heart. Maybe she decided to die before she could be held accountable for all the people she had destroyed.

He didn't know. He didn't write the incantations. He merely took the paper out, and watched the golem return to the muddy clay of the riverbed.

Alphonse looked down at his hands, gauntlets and steel and fine chain mesh. The calm threatened to drown him; it was so tempting, to give into the numbing, obliterating forgetfulness. The memory of the floating, wraithlike weightlessness of Gray body seemed to stain his hands, sending deep tremors through his armor, making Al shake uncontrollably. He watched the muted shadows of the gaslamps and the coming dawn play across his palms; the flickering light seemed to breathe in tandem with the shifting silhouettes of the sleeping city. Everything suddenly felt too rapaciously organic for the boy without a body, with his victim lying dead at his feet.

"Alphonse…"

Al knew that voice…

"L-" He slowly resurfaced, emerging out from under the shadow. He controlled the tremor with a tight fist. "Lieutenant?"

Lieutenant Hawkeye blinked. Grace Rosin was dead, Alphonse reasoned, still struggling to rationalize reality, so the Kaolin Alchemist's hold over the golems was broken.

Hawkeye glanced at the gun in her hand, and looked surprised to see that the safety was off. She muttered something about poor firearm discipline and clicked the cylinder out of place, looking down to re-holster the gun at her belt…

And seeing the Colonel laying motionless in the street, sprawled in a pool of his own blood.

"Colonel!"

Lieutenant Hawkeye's face went ash-white. She went to kneel down beside her commanding officer, then she realized she was still holding her gun. She looked at the weapon, then down to the Flame Alchemist, before slowly turning to face Alphonse and the still form of Grace Rosin. Agonizing realization inched across Riza's face. A creeping, crippling paralysis.

The grief surged with every breath. Alphonse could almost measure the swell between each peak. It never seemed sufficiently soothed by her long intakes of the damp night air.

"Alphonse," she began. She couldn't finish. Al saw her hand tighten on her handgun, trigger discipline suddenly forgotten. She began to raise her arm...

The younger Elric tried to control a surge of panic. Dread pulsed like a headache behind his eyes. He saw the unobtrusive, silent tears begin to fall from the Lieutenant amber eyes and tried to concentrate on nothing else. "Lieutenant," he said gently, slowly, "put the gun down."

"What…" Her gaze moved from cobblestone to cobblestone. Alphonse read in her eyes the sure knowledge that her life could not go on without him, without Roy Mustang. That time had stopped for her. The pretenses of discipline, the control of quiet anger and suffocating grief, threatened to crack. Lieutenant Hawkeye sank to the damp road, not caring about the water and the blood that quickly soaked through her uniform trousers. "What have I done…"

Alphonse knelt beside the Colonel. He placed his hands –– those same killing hands –– over Roy's slightly-parted mouth, and saw the steel of his gauntlets fog from a small exhalation of breath.

"He's alive!" said Al, hardly believing it himself. He delicately moved aside the Colonel's greatcoat. "Lieutenant, you shot him in the shoulder!"

"But," she closed her eyes, "Alphonse, I was going to shoot him in the head… I was going to kill him."

"That doesn't matter right now," he insisted. "You were being controlled by Miss Rosin!"

Hawkeye's hackles stood on end. "Where is she?"

"I…" Alphonse swallowed. "I killed her." It was an accident, he almost added, but didn't. He had never been one predisposed to lying.

"Oh." Her voice was small. "I see."

"Look," Al deftly changed the subject; there would be a time for absolution; one day, for both of them, "the Colonel needs help. I can get Lieutenant Havoc, but you need to stay with him, okay?"

"Yes." Hawkeye schooled her expression. She tore the sleeve from her uniform jacket and went about fashioning a tourniquet to staunch the Colonel's bleeding. Alphonse was, again, astounded by her bravery and poise. She didn't care how she felt; the Colonel was the only person who mattered. "Please, get an ambulance."

"Alright." Alphonse hesitated, then asked tentatively. "Can I… can I have your gun, Lieutenant?"

"No."

"But––"

"I need it. To protect him."

To protect him. Of course.

Alphonse nodded. Then he turned towards Eastern Headquarters, running away from the two beaten, broken soldiers.

And the dead alchemist. The Golem Formator, killed by a golem herself. Equivalent Exchange, indeed.

Alphonse followed the trail of destruction –– Brother's hastily cobbled transmutations, walls and barricades and spiked portcullises, transmuted in an attempt to slow William in his inexorable march through the city. Broken windows and caved-in walls marked where the armored boy and the Fullmetal Alchemist had done battle. Glass crunched under Alphonse's feet as he tucked his head close to his chest and ran faster.

He hadn't intended to find Brother. But he couldn't say he was surprised when he rounded a corner, emerging in the market district, and spotted the diminutive form of Edward Elric, standing in the middle of a crater where a small corner café used to be, sticking out like a red eyesore in the predawn darkness.

"Alphonse!"

Ed looked terrible. His cloak was in tatters. Purple bruises peppered his arm. He kept blinking blood out of his eye. His automail had been transmuted into so many different weapons over such a short period of time the gears were almost fused together. Winry would have wept. Sweat poured down his face. He was still breathing heavily, resting his elbows on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

Across the street, framed by an empty archway, William Osterhagen loomed ominously. The suit of armor didn't move.

"Al," gasped Edward, "the Kaolin Alchemist…"

"She's gone."

Ed grit his teeth. He spat, "What the hell do you mean she's _gone––_?"

"Brother," said Al quietly, "if you know the secret name of God, you can build worlds, and you can destroy them."

"Al, what––"

"It's done. It's finished."

"Alphonse!"

Al didn't wait for Ed's surprise, or his outrage. He stepped up to the giant suit of armor.

He remembered the words. He repeated them like a mantra.

 _If you know the secret name of God, you can build worlds, and you can destroy them. You can move mountains. You can also make a human being –– a living person –– out of clay. A golem._

 _The law of destruction is the reversal of the law of creation._

 _You were created by the sages; now, o creature, return to your dust._

Al peered through the visor. He saw the blood seal on the inside of the helm.

And he heard a voice, so quiet it was almost inaudible...

 _"_ _Alphonse."_

Al gave a tiny wave. He imagined himself smiling.

"Hi, Will. It's nice to meet you."

 _"_ _I'm sorry…"_

"It's okay." Alphonse sensed the presence of Brother close behind him, ready to protect him if something went wrong. Gratitude swelled in Al's chest. He repeated Edward's words, and this time, he believed them: "It wasn't your fault."

 _"_ _I'm tired, Alphonse. I'm very tired."_

"I know."

 _"And… I miss them. I miss them so much."_

Al thought of Mom. He thought of her smile. "I miss them, too."

 _"_ _I want to go see them now."_

"I understand."

 _"_ _Will you set me free, Alphonse?"_ Will seemed to breath a deep, shuddering sigh. It could have been the wind. _"I want to go home."_

"Yeah. Hold on…"

Alphonse lifted the visor. There was the blood seal; a unicursal star, encasing a small, bright flame. Anchoring Will's tired, broken soul to the world.

Such a small thing. A miracle, and a curse. A single piece of paper with a single word, able to create life and destroy it.

"Can you forgive me, Will?"

 _"_ _Oh, Alphonse Elric,"_ somewhere, a sandy-haired boy smiled a crooked smile, cradling Borax crystals and reams of chemistry notes, _"you are forgiven._

 _"Always and eternally forgiven."_

Al nodded. With precise motions, he scratched the rust-colored seal from the steel plate, until he could see his reflection in the armor. He brushed the dried blood from his fingertips.

 _"_ _Goodbye, my friend."_

Alphonse must have imagined it. The seal was gone. Will was dead.

But he didn't think it mattered.

"Goodbye, Will."

Al stepped back as the armor stiffened. Then, with nothing left to hold it upright, the suit came apart, the steel plates uncoupling in the street, clanging like the sound of a church bell chorusing the dawn. Like something dying and resurrecting.

Like alchemy.

Alphonse Elric faced his older brother.

"Come on," he told Edward, "we need to get a doctor for the Colonel."

Edward didn't say anything. He didn't have to. He lay his hand on his brother's armor, and for the first time, Alphonse was sure he felt the weight of its touch.

Then the two brothers took off at a brisk run, making for Eastern Headquarters as morning broke over the city...


	12. You Must Not Miss

"Ow!"

The nurse had the audacity to roll her eyes at him. "With all due respect, Colonel Mustang, you're acting like an infant."

Roy glared, the same glare that would make Falman break out in a flop sweat and Havoc start chewing his cigarette. The glare that even gave Fullmetal pause for thought.

The glare that would one day command a nation.

The nurse didn't so much as blink.

"I told you multiple times at multiple decibel levels that my arm _hurts_ , yet you continue to bend it in every conceivable direction like a silly straw—ow ow OW!"

"Hush! I'm just putting it back in your sling. I've heard less fuss from patients with kidney stones!"

Roy grumbled, "When Havoc said I was getting a pretty nurse this isn't exactly what I had in mind—"

The young woman squeezed his shoulder tighter than perhaps was necessary, eliciting a very undignified yelp from the Colonel. The nurse smiled sweetly as Mustang's face went chalk white and tears welled in his eyes. Satisfied, she rested his arm back on the bedspread.

"Is there anything else I can do to make you more comfortable?"

He almost recoiled from her. "I'm perfectly… fine."

"Very well. In that case, Colonel, you have a visitor."

"Thank god for that..."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said send them in."

"That's what I thought."

Mustang grimaced. He wondered who he'd managed to thoroughly piss off to get saddled with this harpy…

Well, quite a few people, now that he thought about it. More than a few. He figured it was fortunate some of his less sympathetic peers in the military hierarchy hadn't seen fit to ship him off to a veterinary hospital to get his arm set and the shrapnel removed.

The sound of the door drew his attention. When he distinguished his visitor behind the frosted glass, talking quietly with the nurse, he sobered quickly. He tried to ignore the dull ache in his shoulder.

When she came in, she was mindful of closing the door behind her. From the bed, her rigid posture made her look quite tall.

"Lieutenant."

Hawkeye stayed near the wall. "How are you, sir?"

"None the worse for wear." Roy launched into the formalities: "Status report."

"Major Rosin is dead." Hawkeye cleared her throat. "It's unclear how she died, sir, but at this stage, Dr. Parcy suspects an accelerated Hayflick effect, the telomeres in her cells' DNA getting exponentially shorter until they reached a critical length, and cell division simply ceased."

"So... you're saying she died of old age."

She nodded. "Old age, sir. At forty five years old."

Mustang grunted. "It's too good a death for the likes of her."

"Sir," Hawkeye's striking amber eyes looked haunted. "William Osterhagen is dead, too."

He sighed. "The Elrics couldn't save him?"

"No, sir. It seems there was little left to save."

"Damn her." Mustang fought the urge to bunch his sheets in his fists. "Evil bitch."

Hawkeye merely inclined her head. He knew she was too professional to proffer a likeminded comment, though he knew it was there, somewhere. Still, even by Hawkeye's standards, she had been acting very quiet. She still hadn't approached his bed.

It's not as though a busted shoulder is contagious, Riza, he thought to himself, almost amused.

"How embarrassing," said Roy, trying to lighten the mood. "Look at me, going and getting myself knocked unconscious while the Elrics get all the glory for saving the day… again."

It was not the right thing to say. Hawkeye actually flinched. It was little more than a small spasm in her shoulders. Anyone who didn't know her exceptionally well would have missed it.

Roy Mustang did not miss it.

"I didn't know you cared, Lieutenant." He grinned cheekily, stubbornly willing her to smile one of those tiny, exasperated smiles that meant he was taking the piss with her and she was about to dump a pile of paperwork the size of Breda's lunchpail on his desk. The smile he had committed to memory. The smile he treasured, even when it spelled trouble. "I should be back on my feet before long, but the doc says the bullet shattered in the glenohumeral joint capsule, so I won't be writing for a while—"

"Sir..."

"—so good luck getting me to do all that blasted paperwork!"

"Sir!"

Mustang's smirk vanished. Hawkeye rarely raised her voice; she never had to. Not with him.

The Colonel took a good look at his adjutant. She looked… tired, thin, worn at the edges, as though she'd been stretched in too many directions at once. She looked as though she hadn't had a bite to eat in days. Dark bags hung under her eyes. A few strands of hair had escaped the usually immaculate knot on the back of her head. Even her military blues looked wrinkled, like she had taken to sleeping in them.

Or, Roy thought gloomily, not sleeping at all.

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

Hawkeye walked towards his hospital cot, but kept a carefully calculated distance between them. That was not unusual in of itself –– even Roy had grown used to framing his world in terms of spaces and separations, particularly those erected between himself and his adjutant –– but then she handed him a plain envelope.

Mustang took it, but he didn't open it. "What's this?"

She stood rigidly to attention when she said, her voice unwavering, "My formal letter of resignation, sir, effective immediately with your signature."

Something not unlike heartburn made his chest sore. He fought the urge to fling the envelope across the room. Instead, he tried to read Hawkeye, to gauge the reasoning behind such a stupid and reckless request, but her amber eyes remained stubbornly impassive. She was rather good at that. People so often saw only what she wanted them to see.

But Roy liked to think he was the exception.

"May I ask why, Lieutenant?"

She inclined her head. "Respectfully, sir, I think you know why."

"This?" Roy jostled his splinted arm for emphasis. It hurt like a bastard, but he'd be damned if he was going to let Hawkeye know that. "This is nothing. I've had worse scrapes shaving."

"I shot you, sir."

"No, you didn't." This time, when he spoke, there was no flippancy in his words. He imagined his voice like bladed steel, keen and precise: "Gray Rosin shot me."

"I pulled the trigger."

"You weren't in control of your actions."

"Is a drunk driver in control of his actions when he runs over a child?" countered Hawkeye, uncharacteristically belligerent. Roy's mouth snapped shut. "Sir, that defense would never hold water in the court martial's office or on any board of inquiry. I shot my superior officer. The only course of action for me to take is to relinquish my commission and await trial by a military tribunal." She nodded towards the envelope. "The details are listed in the letter, sir. I'm sure you will find them to your satisfaction."

Roy swallowed down a few choice rejoinders. He looked at the envelope again — which was beginning to crease under his clenching hands — and tossed it onto the bedside table. Hawkeye's eyes widened.

"Request denied."

"Sir—!"

"Request denied, First Lieutenant," snapped Roy, in a tone he hoped would brook no further discussion. Evidently, he was mistaken.

"I cannot accept that, Colonel. Hiding and abetting a felon is tantamount to conspiracy to commit." Her meticulous poise was beginning to fall apart. She looked as though she was trying hard not to pick up the envelope and thrust it into his face.

Try it, Lieutenant, Roy thought grimly, my gloves are still in my pocket…

"I will not allow you to become a guilty party in this."

"Neither one of us is guilty of anything."

"Please, sir," she said, her words growing strained, "I don't want to drag you or the Elric brothers through an official inquiry. Allow me the dignity of resigning."

"Denied."

"Sir…"

" _Denied_. I will repeat myself as many times as necessary for you to understand the situation."

Her composure cracked. "What I understand about the situation, _sir_ , is that you are hospitalized because your adjutant shot you with every intention of killing you."

"I don't remember Gray Rosin ever serving as my adjutant," said Roy with mock innocence. It was only Hawkeye's indomitable discipline that kept her from socking him in the jaw. Which was probably for the best; Riza Hawkeye had a mean right hook.

"Now, _my_ adjutant is a model soldier, a fine officer, and an exceptionally brave woman who was compelled through alchemic means to kill her superior, and who, despite the unimaginable psychological strain, fought the conditioning to an extent where her target escaped with only a busted shoulder and a bruised ego. _That_ is my adjutant, Lieutenant."

"For once in your life, sir, will you _listen_ …" said Hawkeye, her voice dangerously quiet and calm; Roy had only ever heard that tone once before, and it was an occasion he would much rather forget. It resurrected memories of cold silver sulfadiazine on his hands and the smell of cooked meat on his clothes… "A bodyguard so easily turned against her commanding officer cannot be counted on to protect him!"

"You _do not miss_ , Lieutenant!" said Roy firmly. "You are the Hawk's Eye. If you wanted to kill me, I'd be dead. The reason I'm not isn't because of slipshod aim or a gun misfire. Not with your own weapons. You missed because you fought Gray, one of the most formidable alchemists in Amestris, and you won. The only thing you deserve from an inquiry board is a medal for extreme valor. So… request denied."

"Sir..."

"I thought I lost you, Hawkeye." He didn't realize he had been gripping the bed sheets until he felt his fingers beginning to cramp. "I thought... when Alphonse told me you'd stayed behind..."

"A long time ago, Major Rosin saved my life. I have always ever been far more use to her alive than dead."

He bit out four bitter words: "I can't lose you."

"But I can no longer trust myself with your life, sir," she added quietly. She sounded too tired to argue. Roy wondered when was the last time she'd slept…

"But _I_ trust you with it. Always. And at the end of the day," he chuckled, "it's _my_ life, to entrust to whomever I chose."

"That is highly irresponsible. Sir," she added his honorific as an afterthought.

"That's why I need you to be the responsible one, Lieutenant."

"Colonel…"

"Hawkeye," he said, a glint in his black eyes, "unless you're here to upbraid me about forgetting to fill out my report, or unless you're here with an offer of dinner, we have nothing more to discuss."

"What you are doing is indescribably selfish."

"I'm a selfish man," Roy affirmed simply. "When I find good officers, I like to keep them."

She pursed her lips into a tight, bloodless line. He waited patiently for her to think of something to say that wouldn't make Alphonse Elric go pink around his proverbial ears.

"They will court martial you if they discover you have covered for me… sir."

"I'm not covering for anyone," said Mustang. "According to the report I've drafted in my near illegible left-hand, I was shot by the Kaolin Alchemist. My adjutant demonstrated extreme bravery in the line of duty by protecting her superior officer at considerable risk to her own life. And that same superior officer is counting on her to watch his back." He looked at her… one of those looks that conveyed so much in so few words. A look that would only ever be for her. "You gave me your word. Even into hell, Lieutenant Hawkeye. Remember?"

"Sir." She reached a hand toward the envelope. She sounded brittle — but Hawkeye is strong, thought Roy, stronger than anyone — when she said, "But I cannot forgive myself for this."

When she went to pick up the letter of resignation, Roy forgot about all those carefully calculated distances and clasped her hand in his. Even her knuckles were calloused, weathered by the wind and the elements, by war, by time. He fought a sudden urge to run his fingers over the bones and the sinew, to trace the geography of her hands.

She stiffened. Roy didn't dare look up. If he lifted his head even slightly, the space would be small enough to trivialize the lines they had drawn and redrawn over the long, bitter years, and it would be so desperately simple to meet her copper colored eyes, to go somewhere they ought not go. As much as he wanted it, so much so it made his chest ache, it wasn't fair. Not to him, and especially not to Riza.

They both had bigger promises to keep.

"Then I'll make it an order, Lieutenant. Focus. Keep faith. I can't afford for you to be distracted. Is that understood?"

When she answered, her words were tinged with some of the old gunsmoke. And her hand lingered, just for a moment, before tucking the envelope close to her chest. She clicked her heels together in a salute.

"Understood, sir."

Roy grinned.

And, finally, Riza Hawkeye allowed herself a small, tight smile.

* * *

 **Later**

"I always liked it up here."

"Why's that, Brother?"

"I dunno, Al. Guess because I can see the whole city from here."

Alphonse knew better than to ask if it had something to do with his height. Knowing Brother, it probably did.

A small river diverged around the hill. The current gurgled over the rocks, carrying twigs and leaves from the sallows upstream, running their feathery fingers in the water. Brother said the river was cold when he stuck his boot in it. Alphonse took him at his word.

A single tree sat on the top of the hill, its long shadows sloping down towards the fields of thick yellow grass, shimmering like goldthread in the afternoon sun. The branches rippled in auburns and crimsons, the soft susurrus carried on the chill autumn air. The leaves blanketed the hill; Ed and Al's footsteps crunched as they climbed. A stone sat at the top of the hill, sheltered under the lowermost branches. It was made of clean, white marble. Brother had transmuted it himself from the foundations of the old house. To save material, Ed had explained. Alphonse couldn't help but wonder if there was some other reason.

The Osterhagen estate was gone now. General Grumman had seen to it himself; a team of state alchemists and the army corps of engineers had dismantled it brick by brick. News of Grace Lambert Rosin's treachery had reached as far as Central. Führer Bradley had been working diligently to implement new safety controls throughout Amestris, ensuring the soundness and dependability of military-grade propellant. Bradley had assured the people that it was to keep soldier and civilian casualties to a minimum and to safeguard against any other disasters like the Osterhagen incident.

Brother had sneered at the gesture. Führer Bradley just wanted to brush the entire affair under the rug while ensuring the military's munitions remained as deadly as possible, Edward claimed. As well as the new safety regulations, the Führer had implemented a national register for former state alchemists. Even retired military dogs couldn't escape the government's scrutiny. Brother hadn't been too happy about that.

The military was tightening his leash.

Alphonse sighed. He suspected things were going to change for them. Bradley wouldn't allow another national disgrace under his administration, and he'd kept his single eye firmly fixed on the East ever since news reached him of Gray's attempted insurrection. The Elrics would have to move carefully if they wanted to get their original bodies back without inviting awkward questions.

Easier said than done, thought Alphonse gloomily.

The winds had shifted. The Al suspected a storm was coming.

As the branches swayed, and dappled shadows danced across the grass, Edward and Alphonse stood next to each other, holding vigil over the small white stone. Neither brother said a word. The leaves of the old sycamore tree seemed to speak for them, whispering secrets the world had forgotten.

"Do you think it'll rain today, Al?" asked Ed quietly, after a long breadth of silence.

Alphonse looked up towards the blue autumn sky. "I don't think so."

"Sometimes, I wish it'd rain on days like this."

Al looked down at his older brother, the unspoken question hanging between them.

"It shouldn't be so beautiful when it's so sad," said Edward.

Al knit his hands together. He murmured, "Maybe it's beautiful _because_ it's sad."

"Yeah. Maybe."

Another pause. The dancing boughs and rustling leaves alternated between motion and stillness, sound and silence, like caesural breaks in a poem. It was as though the hillside was breathing.

"Brother?"

"Yeah, Al?"

"I like the view from up here, too."

Ed smiled at that, a small, sad smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, eyes that had known unspoken horrors and unimaginable pain. "But you're already so big and tall, Al. You don't need a hill to stand on."

"It's not that," said Alphonse. He looked towards East City in the distance, glittering white against the horizon. The ribbon of East River sparkled blue and white, pellucid like liquid glass. If he squinted, he could see the pearly limestone country of Ishval, and beyond that, the yellow swathes of the Great Desert. It was their entire world, condensed into a counterpane of color, spread out like a quilt from the bottom of the hill.

When Al raised his hand, he blotted out the entire countryside, and eclipsed the blue, blue sky with his palm. But he didn't feel big.

He felt incredibly small.

"Things are going to get bad for us, Brother," said Al softly. "I think it _is_ going to rain soon. But at least, today, we have this." Alphonse brushed a mantel of fallen leaves from his shoulders, watched them pirouette in slow, lazy spirals. "And when I get my body back, I'm going to come back here, and sit under this tree. And just _be_ here."

Ed's face crinkled in a grin. "That sounds pretty good, Al."

"Are you still sad, Brother?"

Edward touched Alphonse's arm lightly. He looked down at the marble stone. "I've been sad ever since Mom died." Then, he pointed with his automail hand. "But the sky is still blue, isn't it?"

"Yeah. The bluest blue there is."

"You ready to head back?"

"Just one second…"

Alphonse opened his chestplate. He took out a bouquet of white flowers. He didn't remember what they smelled like, and he didn't know what they were called, but they were the same sort of flowers they'd given Mom. Crisp, clean white petals on a weathered gravestone. They reminded Alphonse of home, of promises he still had to keep.

Of seasons and gods and heroes dying and resurrecting. Of people in stories living forever.

Of deconstructions and reconstructions. Of returning.

Alphonse looked westward, where the sun had started its slow descent towards the horizon. Perhaps the twilight sun was a way of reminding humanity about the balance between good and evil, night and day. The sun sets. Light fades, dies. Darkness falls. Nothing is eternal, and like a man made of clay, everything ends.

But, sometimes, not forever. Not always.

Not today.

Alphonse Elric placed the bouquet on Will Osterhagen's gravestone. Then he followed his older brother down the hill.

They had a train to catch. Reole was waiting for them.

 **The End**


End file.
